What is Nursing?

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What is Nursing?=====================================

THE TASK

  •  
  • MAKE A PEER RESPONSE OR REVIEW OF THE ESSAY BELOW
  • Length: A minimum of 150 words per post, not including references
  • Citations: At least one high-level scholarly reference in APA per post from within the last 5 years

This week we were asked to conduct a survey by posing the question to nurses and non-nurses. Qualitative research can produce foundational data for theories, as they are very descriptive and might provide the researcher with topics to form a theory with (Utley, et al. 2018). In our case the question was about the purpose of nursing, to which the nurses provided lengthy responses addressing the patient-nurse relationship, healthcare promotion and disease prevention. Some nurses added the task of patient education and patient advocacy. One nurse answered that nursing is the heart of healthcare to promote health and provide care to the sick, and another response added the need for a holistic approach and to place the patient in the center of all attention.

The non-nursing responses include that the purpose of nursing is to care, to heal and to help which was also described as the provision of loving care. Some of the non-nursing participants answered simply that is to help others. The interesting fact of this survey is that some of my non-nursing friends provided very sophisticated answers as what they feel is the purpose of nursing, telling me that they have put some thought into this even before being asked.  The general population does have an opinion about what nursing should ideally look like.

Nursing research has different frameworks available to ensure validity, trustworthiness, ethical considerations and general applicability (Utley, et al. 2018). The National Center for the Dissemination of Disability Research compiled a number of core principles to ensure these factors. It addresses the importance of the empirical question, the use of appropriate methods and reasoning, the use of a sufficient number of data, appropriate measurement of information, recognition of possible biases impacting the study and quality standards for reporting (Utley, et al. 2018).

References:

Utley, R., Henry, K. and Smith, L. (2018). Frameworks for advanced nursing practice and research. Springer Publishing Company. Chapters 1 and 24.