Health
Health: Well-Being and More-Being
According to humanistic Nursing theory there is a call from a person, a family, a community or from humanity for help with some health related issue. The nursing act is always related to the health-illness quality of the human condition, or fundamentally, to a man's personal survival. This is not to say that all instances of nursing are matters of life and death, but rather that every nursing act has to do with the quality of a person's living and dying. That nursing is related to health and illness is self-evident. How it is related is not so apparent.
"Health" is valued as necessary for survival and is often proposed as the goal of nursing. There are, in actuality, many instances of nursing that could be described as "health restoring," "health sustaining," or "health promoting." Nurses engage in "health teaching" and "health supervision."
On the other hand, there are instances in which health, taken in its narrowest meaning as freedom from disease, is not seen as an attainable goal, as evidenced, for example, in labels given to patients such as "terminal," "hopeless," and "chronic." Yet in actual practice these humans' conditions call forth some of the most complete, expert, total, beautiful nursing care. Nursing, then, as a human response, implies the valuing of some human potential beyond the narrow concept of health taken as absence of disease. Nursing's concern is not merely with a person's well-being but with his more-being, with helping him become more as humanly possible in his particular life situation.
According to humanistic Nursing theory there is a call from a person, a family, a community or from humanity for help with some health related issue. The nursing act is always related to the health-illness quality of the human condition, or fundamentally, to a man's personal survival. This is not to say that all instances of nursing are matters of life and death, but rather that every nursing act has to do with the quality of a person's living and dying. That nursing is related to health and illness is self-evident. How it is related is not so apparent.
"Health" is valued as necessary for survival and is often proposed as the goal of nursing. There are, in actuality, many instances of nursing that could be described as "health restoring," "health sustaining," or "health promoting." Nurses engage in "health teaching" and "health supervision."
On the other hand, there are instances in which health, taken in its narrowest meaning as freedom from disease, is not seen as an attainable goal, as evidenced, for example, in labels given to patients such as "terminal," "hopeless," and "chronic." Yet in actual practice these humans' conditions call forth some of the most complete, expert, total, beautiful nursing care. Nursing, then, as a human response, implies the valuing of some human potential beyond the narrow concept of health taken as absence of disease. Nursing's concern is not merely with a person's well-being but with his more-being, with helping him become more as humanly possible in his particular life situation.