Running Head: UNDERSTANDING NURSING PHENOMENON

Understanding Nursing Phenomenon

Melquiades C. Ancheta
St. Louis University

All inquiry undertaken by nurses is not research that contributes to the discipline of
nursing; to be nursing research, studies must be undertaken from a nursing perspective

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(Donaldson & Crowley, 1978). Evidently, most nursing research studies carried out in the
preparatory and even in the middle level of nursing education focused more in the generation of
knowledge regarding relationship of various factors that can contribute to the disease process or
alternative treatments for such. The knowledge that we are creating must have an added impact
to the discipline so as to make it more distinct from other discipline. Nursing having a unique
body of knowledge will clearly corrode the fundamental foundation of the discipline if we
continuously explore beyond the concept of nursing phenomena. Thus, to make the research
nursing, it must have a substantive focus (Reed, 1997). Identifying, developing and
incorporating nursings unique ontological and epistemological perspective into advanced
practice nursing places priority on delivering care based on research-derived knowledge.
Without a clear distinction of our metatheoretical space, we risk blindly adopting the practice
values of other disciplines, which may not necessarily reflect those of nursing. A lack of focus
may lead current advanced practice nursing curricula and programs to mirror the logical
positivist paradigm and perspective of medicine (Engoren, Hicks, Whall & Algase, 2005).
The International Classification for Nursing Practice or ICNP (as cited by Moran &
Burson, n.d.) described nursing phenomenon as a type of factor influencing health status with the
specific characteristics; aspect of health of relevance to nursing practice. This refers to the
events that influence the scope of practice of nursing in providing health services to all type of
patients in any age group living in various settings. This interrelatedness of person, environment,
nursing and health believed to be the central of nursing as a professional discipline (Newman,
Sime & Perry, 1991). However, this what makes nursing difficult to explore because of its
complexity when it comes to relationship and social relevance. This arise the problem in
identifying the essence of nursing research and of the common elements and threads that give

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coherence to an identifiable body of knowledge (Donaldson & Crowley, 1978). Hence, Halcomb
& Andrew (2005) affirmed that the complex nature of phenomena investigated by nurses
demands the use of a multifaceted approach to develop nursing knowledge.
To eloquent nursing phenomena, Donaldson & Crowley (1978) identified commonalities
and remarkable consistencies of ideas from the time of Nightigale and other nursing scholars in
the past explaining the essence or the core of nursing. Three general themes emerged, they are
the: 1) concern with principles and laws that govern the life processes, well-being and optimum
functioning of human beings sick or well; 2) concern with the patterning of human behavior
in interaction with the environment in critical life situations; and 3) concern with the processes
by which positive changes in health status are affected. These themes were suggested to be the
boundaries of nursing research for systemic inquiry and theory development for making the
nature of the discipline of nursing more explicit than it is at present.
Other nursing scholars identified various nursing phenomena as to what to explore when
it comes to nursing research. Newman, Sime & Perry (1991) affirmed that nursing is the study of
caring in the human health experience. This focus implies a social mandate and service identity
and specifies a domain for knowledge development. The social mandate and service identity are
conveyed by a commitment to caring as a moral imperative. This focus dictates that nursings
body of knowledge includes caring and human health experience. A body of knowledge that
does not include caring and human health experience is not nursing knowledge.
In contrary, Reed (1997) reconstructs also the current understandings of nursing. She
proposed that nursing is the study of nursing processes of well-being, inherent among human
systems. These descriptions signify that nursing involves a process that is developmental,

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progressive and sustaining, and by which well being occurs. This substantive focus of the
discipline inherent to the person involved is supported in the works of Nightingale (1859), to the
mid-20th century writings of Henderson, to the contemporary turn-of-the-century ideas of
Schlotfeldt. Nightingale (as cited by Reed, 1997) believed that a person has an innate power to
undergo reparative process similar to the self-healing processes of Watson (1985) and
Schlotfeldts (1994) belief that human beings has the inherent ability and propensity to seek and
attain health. Reed (1997) asserted that human beings are viewed as open, living systems and
not as passive but intrinsically active and innovative. As an open system, human systems are
capable of self organizing, where self refers to the system as a whole. Self organization is an
inherent capacity for generating qualitative change out of ongoing events in the life of the human
system and its environment. This nursing process inherent to the person is a nursing
phenomenon to be explored to facilitate well being. Correspondingly, the Royal College of
Nursings (2003) definition of nursing as the utilization of clinical judgement in the provision of
care enables the person to improve, maintain or recover health, to cope with health problems, and
to achieve the best possible quality of life, until death. This provision of care focusing on how
the innate nursing processes be enhanced is another phenomenon to value and explore to
facilitate well being.
The broadness of nursing phenomena might be a reason why there is no clear knowledge
to support the science of nursing. However, nursing theories were developed to guide the
practice and to provide an orderly way to understand nursing phenomena (Moran & Burson,
n.d.). Theories in nursing were made up of concepts (words or phrases used to describe the
concept) and propositions (statements that describe the relationship among the concepts) that
help to explain a phenomenon of interest (Jensen, 2012 as cited by Moran & Burson, n.d.). In a

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logical empiricism, understanding the science of a discipline can be derived from the theories
and the relationships among its components. This provides a systematic unification of the
diverse phenomena of a particular discipline (Silva & Rothbart, 1984). However, in historicists
tenets, research traditions could be a basis of underpinning the science of a discipline because it
was the broad based foundation of many theories thus; it is the accepted way of viewing the
fundamental phenomena within a discipline (Laudan as cited by Silva & Rothbart, 1984). There
are three specific components that make up a research tradition, they are: 1) specific theories, 2)
ontological commitments, and 3) methodological commitments. The function of any theory is to
solve scientific problems within the discipline, from the perspective of the research traditions
ontological commitments. While methodological commitments pertains to the legitimate
methods of inquiry and experimental procedures that are inseparably linked to a research
traditions ontology.
According to McEwen & Wills (as cited by Moran & Burson, n.d.) the level of
abstractness of theories make it difficult to understand the discipline because of the broadness of
definition given in every concepts resulting to intricacy to integrate it into practice. For a
phenomenon to be understood within the context of nursing there should be a clear concept from
a particular theory to easily explain such human situation concerning nursing. The fundamental
patterns of knowing in nursing by Carper (1978) could be a helpful way to holistically
understand human experience related to nursing. The four patterns comprise the: 1) empirics
the science of nursing, 2) esthetics the art of nursing, 3) the component of a personal
knowledge, and 4) ethics the component of moral knowledge in nursing. The body of
knowledge derived from a particular phenomenon has forms and patterns which could be a basis
of nursing practice.

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Phenomenon in nursing is a broad concept that needs to be explored to determine the

essentiality and to clarify its domain before claiming as nursing phenomenon. The variability of
nursing based from their definitions entails differences thus, hard to penetrate if what really the
focus of nursing. If there would be a general account that is commonly accepted by all nursing
scholars, it would not be as hard as it get to determine a phenomenon that is considered nursing.
However, nursing phenomenon as defined is an occurence that is happening within the context of
a person that is essential to the practice of nursing wherein these events can have an impact to the
well being of a person hence, need to be explored, defined and strengthened for it to become the
basis of generating knowledge in nursing.

References
Carper, B. (1978). Fundamental Patterns of Knowing in Nursing. Advances in Nursing Science,
Vol 1, Issue 1, pp. 13 24.

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Donaldson, S. & Crowley, D. (1978). The Discipline of Nursing. University of Washington.

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