Application of Concepts from Caring Science
Caring is the epitome of nursing practice. Human caring embodies attentive, respectful, and open treatment of patients. Nurse caring gives due weight to the human component of patients and establishes a trans-personal caring relationship that promotes healing for both the nurse and the patient. In modern healthcare, where innovative approaches such as patient-centred care continue to define nursing operationalizations, the caring science remains an underpinning factor in all caring processes. These approaches implore caregivers to have a higher appreciation of their patients and provide care that suits their needs and enhances their clinical outcomes.
Nursing theories provide foundational knowledge on nursing principles that enable nurses to justify their actions toward their patients. Watson’s caring theory is central to the understanding of nurse caring. As per Watson’s theoretical provisions, nurse caring recognizes and acknowledges patients as humans and dignifies and respects them during care delivery. The ten Caritas detailed in this theoretical framework forms the basis upon which the science of caring is built. This paper details practice improvement measures in aesthetic nursing through the lens of Watson’s theory of caring.
An Outcome that Can Be Improved
Aesthetic nursing is increasingly becoming relevant in modern healthcare. This sub-specialty focuses on appearance enhancement through medical and surgical techniques. Aesthetic nurses, in this regard, play a role in providing pre- and post-operative care to all patients undergoing cosmetic rehabilitation through surgery, delivering care to these patients and others. The growing number of patients requiring cosmetic procedures underpins the significance of aesthetic nurses. However, the increased demand for these services has created loopholes for quality compromises in aesthetic nursing, with many caregivers falling short of using evidence-based practices in aesthetic care. The quality of aesthetic care is slowly declining, with many providers failing to utilize best practices in aesthetic care when delivering cosmetic procedures to their patients. Optimal aesthetic care requires qualified professionals to utilize evidence-based approaches in guiding their patients toward greater self-awareness. This includes helping them select the most appropriate cosmetic procedure that suits their perception of beauty and self-satisfaction and educating them on the suitable and readily available medical and surgical procedures that will help them attain their goals on their appearance.
Why It Is a Problem
Cosmetic products and procedures receive wide acceptability across populations. This notwithstanding, the consumption of poor-quality cosmetic products and cosmetic procedures has significant harmful health effects. These products have been implicated in skin ailments, discolouration, allergies, and texture alteration, among others (Kanayochukwu Nduka et al., 2019). Arora et al. (2020) affirm that increases in the demand for cosmetic procedures have resulted in the deterioration of aesthetic care that individuals receive. With the commercialization of aesthetic care and increases in the number of charlatans and beauty pallors purporting to provide cosmetic procedures, the public is increasingly deprived of evidenced-based quality and superior aesthetic care.
Healthcare providers have also been implicated in this problem. Many caregivers are increasingly delivering cosmetic procedures without having the prerequisite training on the same. While this is not known to the public who seeks their services, it remains against their Hippocratic oath and contravenes the provisions of ethical practice. The overall impact is often felt by the general public. Their inability to distinguish between qualified and non-qualified aesthetic personnel makes them vulnerable to poor quality practices in aesthetic care. With increased consumption of these poor-quality services lies the risk of the harmful effects of inferior aesthetic products and procedures. Therefore, there is a need to streamline aesthetic care among caregivers to ensure that caregivers with expertise in cosmetology offer these services.
Concepts in Watson’s Caring Theory
Jean Watson’s caring theory asserts that caring potentiates nurses’ inner capabilities and regenerates life energies that are rewarding to both the patients and the nurse. This theory pictures caring as an essential component of nursing practices and postulates its benefits to the nurses and their patients. Watson’s theory emphasizes humanistic approaches to care and details how they intertwine with nursing practice and scientific knowledge underlining nursing practices (Busch et al., 2019). The theory also details the meta-paradigms of human beings, health, and nursing and their criticality in human caring. The ten Caritas defined in this theory epitomizes an ideal patient-nurse experience by outlining factors that need to be addressed when nurses engage their patients. These factors form the basis on which the caring science is built. These include trust, establishing altruistic-humanistic value systems, instilling faith and hope, promoting learning and teaching, promoting a supportive clinical environment that promotes healing, cultivating sensitivity among nurses to self and their patients, the gratification of patient needs, and maintaining openness to miracles.
Clinical Nursing Theory
The aesthetic nurse’s ability to facilitate quality aesthetic care for their patients is fundamental in aesthetic nursing. This caring process is epitomized by the recognition and acknowledgement of all patients as human beings who deserve quality care, dignity, and respect. Nurses’ acknowledgement of their patients as human beings will enhance their accountability when delivering care to them, ensuring they utilize best practices when delivering aesthetic care. The two concepts represented in this theory are nurses’ acknowledgement of patients as human beings and nurses’ accountability when delivering care.
Identification and Definition of Concepts
Nurses’ recognition and acknowledgement of individuals as human beings is the first concept posited in this theory. It entails respecting the intrinsic values of the patients as well as their beliefs and perspectives on care. Thomas et al. (2019) report that recognizing patients as human beings rather than a factor of their incarceration requires an inner understanding of the intrinsic capabilities of each patient, their capacity to think, and the influences that interplay in modulating their health. Recognizing patients as human enables caregivers to dignify them and tap into their intrinsic capabilities and capacity to think, thereby fostering a healthy relationship between caregivers and the patients. It also cultivates an individual’s capabilities toward self-awareness and self-management. This is particularly useful in aesthetic nursing. By cultivating patients’ capabilities towards self-management and self-awareness, caregivers not only accord their patients the authority to make important decisions over their aesthetics but also enhance their understanding of self. This will likely improve their satisfaction with the care they receive and their response to therapy.
Nurses’ accountability during care delivery will determine the clinical outcomes. Nursing accountability stems from nurses’ moral, professional, and ethical obligations. Nurses’ morality and ethicality implore them to employ the principlism concepts of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice as guides to their clinical decision-making processes. In this regard, nurses are expected to utilize healthcare practices that promote the welfare of their patients, prevent harm from befalling them, and are patient-oriented. Nursing professionalism requires nurses to abide by the standards of nursing practice and indulge in practices that improve their patients’ outcomes and increase their satisfaction with the care delivered (Oldland et al., 2020). In aesthetic nursing, patient satisfaction is key. Aesthetic nurses strive to offer care with which their patients are satisfied. By employing evidence-based practices, nurses can guide their patients towards self-management, selecting appropriate cosmetic techniques, and helping them have better perceptions and sense of self (Karlsson & Pennbrant, 2020). This will enhance their satisfaction with the process and improve their clinical outcomes.
Watson’s Concepts Represented in the Clinical Theory
The theoretical concept detailed above illustrates multiple Caritas processes postulated by Jean Watson. The first Caritas process of sustaining humanistic-altruistic values, the sixth Caritas of utilizing problem-solving for decision-making, and the ninth Caritas of gratifying human needs are represented in the clinical theory outlined. Sustaining humanistic-altruistic values by practising equanimity and compassion with self and others will likely improve nurses’ accountability during caring, thereby ensuring they use best practices in aesthetic care. This Caritas is an affirmation of nurses’ acknowledgement of their patients as humans. As such, this implores them to sustain compassion and equanimity during their care delivery processes. This stems from the understanding that their patients are not a factor of their suffering but rather human beings who deserve respect and dignity even in their incarceration. By maintaining compassion towards them, they will likely utilize evidence-based practices when providing cosmetic care to patients.
The sixth Caritas of utilizing problem-solving for decision-making implores the use of caring-healing practices in addressing patient’s presentation. The problem-solving approach to decision-making requires nurses to utilize the mechanisms of knowing, becoming, doing, and being in their decision-making processes (Sebrant & Jong, 2020). Utilizing the problem-solving approach in clinical decision-making will enhance patient satisfaction with the processes. The problem-solving approach to clinical decision-making requires an initial understanding of the patients presenting needs. By identifying these needs, caregivers can devise interventions to address them. This approach will also enhance patients’ satisfaction with the care they receive. In aesthetic nursing, identifying patients’ needs remains essential. It forms the basis for all care processes done on the patients and is the preliminary step in aesthetic care. Utilizing the problem-solving approach in clinical decision-making enables adequate address of all the patient’s cosmetic needs, thereby guaranteeing them better clinical outcomes. It also enhances their satisfaction with the care process they deliver to them.
The ninth Caritas of gratifying patients’ needs is also vital in human caring. Gratifying patients’ needs affirms the caregiver’s recognition of their patients as human beings. It aims to dignify them and meet their personal needs (Perkins, 2021). Gratifying patients’ needs will improve their overall well-being. In aesthetic care, gratifying patients’ needs not only dignifies the patients but also ensures the overall well-being of the patients. Usually, patients presenting for cosmetic rehabilitation have a picture of what they want. Additionally, their demands are specific and often concentrated on an aspect of their body. By gratifying their needs, nurses and other caregivers will respect and dignify them. Subsequently, this will improve their satisfaction with the caring process.
Concept Measurement
The concept outlined can be measured to assess their outcomes. Nurses’ acknowledgement of their patients as human beings is expected to improve their patient’s satisfaction with the clinical processes. Clinical feedback reports can be obtained from the patients through end-of-service reporting and surveys to measure these outcomes. A scrutiny of these feedback reports will reveal the patients’ general feelings toward the services delivered to them. This will give a picture of the patient-caregiver engagements and reveal nurses’ conformity to the provision of the clinical nursing theory postulated. The theoretical concept postulated can also be measured by assessing clinical outcomes. Nurses’ conformity to these provisions is also expected to increase the clinical outcomes of patients presenting for aesthetic care. This is because this theory advocates for the utilization of evidence-based practices in aesthetic care and calls for better accountability among nurses and other caregivers in providing quality care. The concept will be said to be effective when the feedback reports reveal that patients are satisfied with the process and the clinical outcomes are improved.
Conclusions
Caring science remains integral to nursing practice. It emphasizes the humanistic component of nursing practices and implores nurses to respect and dignify their patients. In aesthetic nursing, caring requires aesthetic nurses to guide their patients towards making informed decisions on cosmetic techniques being utilized on them and utilizing best practices when providing care to them. However, the expansion of aesthetic nursing, coupled with its growing acceptability across populations, has resulted in quality compromises in aesthetic care and the utilization of unproven practices in aesthetic care.
Jean Watson’s theory of interpersonal caring embodies caring, which defines nursing practice. This theory details ten Caritas factors that form the basis of caring science. The provisions of these theories can be leveraged to make a clinical nursing theory that addresses the problem witnessed in aesthetic care. As evident above, the postulated clinical nursing theory identifies the concepts of nurses’ acknowledgement of their patients as human beings and their accountability when delivering care. The first concept represents the first, sixth, and ninth Caritas processes postulated by Jean Watson. These Caritas processes will likely improve nurses’ accountability when delivering aesthetic care to their patients.
References
Arora, S., Arora, G., Talathi, A., Kandhari, R., Joshi, V., Langar, S., Nagpal, S., Shetty, V. H., Nair, R. V., Sharma, D., Sharma, R., & Sondhi, P. (2020). The safer practice of aesthetic dermatology during the COVID-19 pandemic: Recommendations by Sig Aesthetics (IADVL Academy). Indian Dermatology Online Journal, 11(4), 534. https://doi.org/10.4103/idoj.idoj_328_20
Busch, I. M., Moretti, F., Travaini, G., Wu, A. W., & Rimondini, M. (2019). Humanization of care: Key elements identified by patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers. A systematic review. The Patient – Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, 12(5), 461–474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-019-00370-1
Kanayochukwu Nduka, J., Ijeoma Kelle, H., & Omoche Odiba, I. (2019). Review of health hazards and toxicological effects of constituents of cosmetics. Poisoning in the Modern World – New Tricks for an Old Dog? https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84590
Karlsson, M., & Pennbrant, S. (2020). Ideas of caring in nursing practice. Nursing Philosophy, 21(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.12325
Oldland, E., Botti, M., Hutchinson, A. M., & Redley, B. (2020). A framework of nurses’ responsibilities for Quality Healthcare — an exploration of content validity. Collegian, 27(2), 150–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2019.07.007
Perkins, J. B. (2021). Watson’s ten Caritas processes are done through the lens of unitary human caring science. Nursing Science Quarterly, 34(2), 157–167. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318420987176
Sebrant, L., & Jong, M. (2020). What’s the meaning of the concept of caring?: A meta‐synthesis. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 35(2), 353–365. https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.12850.
Thomas, D., Newcomb, P., & Fusco, P. (2018). Perception of caring among patients and nurses. Journal of Patient Experience, 6(3), 194–200. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373518795713.
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Question
Summary: A theory can be used to guide practice. This assignment is an exercise in supporting a clinical practice with theory and evidence.
Directions: Identify an outcome of nursing practice in your area of practice that can be improved. For example, if you work in home health, you may identify that throw rug use by fall-risk patients is too prevalent. You may be able to use the problem that inspired the theory concepts that you developed in week two. Identify the concept in Watson’s Theory of Caring that could represent or include the outcome. In our example, the outcome would be the changes in self through the change in the patient’s floor covering practice. Identify a practice that can be changed or implemented that may influence the outcome. Identify the concept in Watson’s Theory of Caring that includes the practice. In our example, the practice could be to improve the understanding of fall hazards through engagement in a teaching-learning experience, one of Watson’s Caritas Processes. Identify exactly how these two concepts will be measured with their operational definitions. Develop a proposition between the two. Present your outcome in an APA formatted paper meeting the University’s standards for a written assignment.
Application of Concepts from Caring Science
Assignment Prompt
Summary: A theory can be used to guide practice. This assignment is an exercise in supporting a clinical practice with theory and evidence.
Directions: Identify an outcome of nursing practice in your area of practice that can be improved. For example, if you work in home health, you may identify that throw rug use by fall-risk patients is too prevalent. You may be able to use the problem that inspired the theory concepts that you developed in week two.
Briefly support why it is a problem with evidence from the literature. This is not the major focus of the assignment so do not elaborate.
Create a clinical nursing (not medical) theory in the form Concept A | Proposition | Concept B. Think of the structure like two nouns and a verb. While the term proposition is much more complex in the dictionary, in our use it is the connecting term between the two concepts. Examples include Concept A improving Concept B, Concept A is related to Concept B, when Concept A increases then Concept B also increases, etc. When you get to research, you will explore this further as you develop independent and dependent variables. How to use these statistics will come in research and statistics courses.
This clinical theory is identified as an empirical theory when you get to the C-T-E model later in this course. It is empirical in that they can be measured.
Identify and define your concepts. Identify how they could be measured in a research study. Be careful that you do not use compound concepts. If you find the words “and” or “or” in your theory, you are probably too complex.
If you research your question and seek funding, you will need a theoretical model to guide the research. In our assignment, we are using Watson. You will identify the concepts in Watson’s theories that are represented by the concepts you are using in your clinical theory. Match the proposition in her theory with your proposition. To help, the 10 Caritas Processes are Concept A. Choose the one that matches your concept. To clarify, let’s look at Caritas 1 Embrace and use it in middle-range theory. Sustaining humanistic-altruistic values by the practice of loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity with self/others (Concept A – Very complex and abstract) improves (Proposition) subjective inner healing (Concept B).
Remember that the paper is not about the problem. It is about constructing a clinical theory and matching it to a middle-range theory and conceptual model your clinical theory represents.
Conclude the paper with your discoveries made in your readings and the impact on the nursing profession of your discoveries. Explore, briefly, discover questions that require further research. Summarize the paper in the conclusion.
Present your outcome in an APA formatted paper that meets the University’s standards for a written assignment.
Expectations
• Due: Monday, 11:59 pm PT
• Length: 5 to 7 pages including title and reference pages
• References: 3 to 10. There should be enough to support the links between the concepts of the problem and the concepts of Watson’s Theory of Caring.
See the USU NUR Research Paper Rubric for additional details and point weighting.
Expectations
• Length: 5 to 7 pages including title and reference pages
• References: 3 to 10. There should be enough to support the links between the concepts of the problem and the concepts of Watson’s Theory of Caring.
See the USU NUR Research Paper Rubric for additional details and point weighting.
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