Definitions of Nursing

“The glorious thing about nursing is that it cannot be defined. The irony is that we never give up trying.”
(F. Storlie as cited in Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983, p. 61)

Introduction

The word “nurse” originated from the Latin word nutrix, meaning to nourish (Taylor, Lillis, &LeMone, 1997). Definitions of nurse and nursing are based on this word origin to describe the nurse as a person who nourishes, fosters, and protects—a person prepared to take care of the sick, injured, and aged people (Ellis & Hartley, 2004). Nonetheless,  the most recent definition of nursing as defined by the American Nurses Association (ANA) is that it is “the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, preventions of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations” (ANA, 2003, p. 6). Similarly, nursing in the Philippines is defined legally in Republic Act 9173, which is the prevailing law regulating the nursing practice. It states in Article VI, Section 28:

A person is deemed to be practicing nursing when he/she singly, or in collaboration with another, initiates and performs nursing services to individuals, families, and communities in any health care setting …As independent practitioners, nurses are primarily responsible for the promotion of health and prevention of illness. As members of the health team, nurses shall collaborate with other health care providers for the curative, preventive, and rehabilitative aspects of care, restoration of health, alleviation of suffering, and when recovery is not possible, towards a peaceful death.

However,  how has nursing evolved to be what it is today?  What are the historical landmarks of its journey?

Purpose

This paper aims to present the breadth and depth of the evolutionary ‘journey’ of contemporary definitions of nursing. Knowing this journey can serve as a vehicle to increase the appreciation of nursing history as it has ushered the discipline and profession to the present time, particularly in the Philippine setting. The author attempts to connect the present with the past, believing what Dock and Stewart (as cited in Lindeman &McAthie, 1999) aptly articulated:

No occupation can be intelligently followed or understood unless it is, at least to some extent, illuminated by the light of history interpreted from the human standpoint.  The origin of our various activities, the spirit animating the founders of a profession, and the long struggle toward an ideal as revealed by a search in the past – these vivify and enable the most prosaic labors, clarify their relation to all else that humanity is doing, and give to workers an unfailing inspiration in the consciousness of being one part of the great whole. We must know how our work of nursing arose; what lines it has followed and under what direction it has developed best.  Possessing the knowledge, each one may help it guide and influence its future in harmony with its historical mission (pp. 3-4).

 
Evolution of the Definition

Several authors have traced the history and definition of nursing. These historical events will be addressed separately according to specific categories as delineated by particular authors.Brooks &Kleine-Kracht (1983) identified  nine eras, starting from the 18^th century up to the 1980s, which have brought a keener awareness of the history of nursing in relation to the nurse’s professional role and how the political and social events have shaped the evolution of nursing. Similarly, Berman, Snyder, Kozier, andErb (2008) traced the historical perspectives of nursing in relation to aspects of events that have influenced nursing. These are: women’s roles, religion, war, social attitudes, and nursing leaders. On the other hand, Buenavista, Jr. (n.d.) divided nursing history into four periods: Intuitive, Apprentice, Educative, and Contemporary, while Tomey and Alligood (2002), divided the history of professional nursing into curriculum era, research era, graduate education era, and the theory era.  In whatever way  its history is traced, the unfolding of nursing is noteworthy to reminisce, although, the  definition of nursing is difficult to grasp because it is intertwined with socio-political events, the changing roles of the nurse, the nature and knowledge base of nursing practice, education, and legislation, among others. Added to this, “because of frequent role confusion there continues to be a lack of consensus as to the definition of nursing” (Brooks &Kleine-Kracht, 1983, p. 52).

 Prehistoric Era up to the 18^th Century

During the prehistoric times, nursing can be construed as an activity—to fix and make humans whole again.  Learning how to care for the young may have been learned from animals (White, 2001) and some of the early definitions of the word nurse were “one who cares for or suckles a child” and “one who looks after and fosters” (Lindeman &McAthie, 1999).  Nursing was also seen as a religious exercise or a pious act. Those who did nursing functioned under a religious order (White, 2001).  During the early civilization, nursing was seen as a religious calling with no formal preparation. Nursing was regarded as a vocation and those who practiced it were willing to deny themselves of the worldly pleasures which required personal sacrifice or being remorseful or repentant and atoning for a sin (Lindeman &McAthie, 1999).

Pious devotion was needed to become a nurse.  It is unfortunate though that these religious values often caused exploitation and few monetary rewards for nurses throughout history (Berman et al., 2008). But it was also the Christian value of love which greatly influenced some wealthy persons, such as Fabiola, to provide houses for the poor and homeless (Kozier, Erb, Berman, & Snyder, 2004).

Although olden times also witnessed men who provided nursing such as the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, most nurses were females who were poorly educated due to societal attitude that the woman’s place was in the home. Nursing then had no social status. ( White, 2004) .

Like in other parts of the world, nursing in the Philippines started during the prehistoric times.  The credible archaeological findings point to the fact that Filipinos used customary health practices for the sick inside caves (DeBelen& De Belen, 2007).  Early beliefs  include attribution of diseases to dwarves(“duwende”), witches(“mangkukulam”), omens (“kutob”), curses (“sumpa”), and evil spirits(“masamangispiritu”) which needed a spin doctor(“herbolario” or “albolario”) to drive the evil spirits.  These pagan practices of “nursing” the sick continued until the coming of the Spaniards in the 1500s when Catholic teachings were enforced on the Filipino people (De Belen & De Belen, 2007).

 19^th century—The Humanistic Influence of Nightingale

This century brought nursing to greater heights with the influence of Florence Nightingale during the mid 19^th century.  The care of the sick continued for humanitarian reasons and the performance of nursing tasks was “to and for the patient.” As civilization grew, so did population. More and more people experienced sickness and were in need of nursing care. Thus, nursing started to be viewed as a job which needed preparation and training. The training was by apprenticeship. In apprenticeship, one learns exactly what one does and therefore knowing and doing were one and the same (Lindeman &McAthie, 1999).  This period set the template for change in the image and status of nursing: the start of modern nursing and its evolution into a profession.

In the mid 1800s in England, Pastor Theodore and FriederikeFliedner started a hospital in Kaiserworth, Germany.  They created training programs for nurses when they realized there was no workforce for the hospital.  Theodore Fliedner reinstituted the Order of Deaconesses (group of nursing providers) which was suppressed by the western churches.  It was with Fliedner’s program that Florence Nightingale “trained” (Lindeman &McAthie, 1999; Berman et al., 2008).  Nightingale was later known as “the creator of the standards of modern, Western, secular nursing practice and education” (Selanders, 2010, p. 70).  She improved the standards for the care of the wounded soldiers in Crimea which earned her the title “Lady with the Lamp” (Berman et al., 2008).  She was a skilled statistician and considered as the first nurse-researcher.  Theory development began with the writings of Nightingale (George, 2002).

One of Nightingale’s earliest applications of her nursing care and management skills was done during the Crimean war of Great Britain in 1854.At the request of a friend and Secretary of War, Sidney Herbert, she took care of wounded soldiers. She addressed sanitation problems. Reduced morbidity and mortality resulted from her environmental modifications in the Scutari barracks ( White, 2001; Tomey, et al, 2002).  Nightingale attended to the needs of the environment and within six months, the mortality rate dropped to 2% from 42.7%. She returned to England after and used her knowledge and experience in creating hospital reforms for the War Department to consider (Lobo, 2002).

Nightingale believed that the nurse is the one who does “for” the patient as evidenced in her statement: “If a patient is cold, if a patient is feverish, if a patient is faint, if he is sick after taking food, if he has a bed-sore, it is generally the fault not of the disease, but of the nursing”(2005, p. 5).  She further stated that “nursing ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth,  cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet—all at the least expense of vital  power to the patient” (p.5).  This principle was more of doing “for” the patient, not “with” the patient, as she “for the most part…described a passive patient in this relationship” (Tomey&Alligood, 2002, p. 70).  Doing “for” the patient implies that the nurse decides for the patient and prescribes what the nurse thinks is best the patient.  On the contrary, doing “with” and being “with” the patient entails collaboration between the patient and the nurse. This is apparent in a contemporary nurse-patient relationship such as described in the theory of Rosemarie Parse wherein she contends that it is not the nurse, but the client, who is the prime decision maker and that nursing is not a prescriptive approach noran offering of professional advice (George, 2002).  Rather, “people co-participate in creating what is real for them through self-expression in living their values in a chosen way” (The Nursing Theory Network, 2005, para. 1).    

In the United States, the development of nursing was strongly influenced by Nightingale through her personal friend, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman physician.Their friendship paved the way for the establishment of a school of nursing at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. Linda Richards was the first nurse to graduate from the program in 1873 and was known as the “first trained nurse in America” (Lindeman &McAthie, 1999). More nursing schools were opened in the United States after the civil war—arecognition of the need for better trained nurses. Three schools – Bellevue Hospital in New York, Connecticut Training School in New Haven, and Boston Training School at Massachusetts General Hospital  were opened and were patterned from the Nightingale School.  ( Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983).

The growth in technology necessitated  trained nurses.  Findings of a commission in the USA showed that in hospitals where nurses were trained, there was reduction in cost and mortality. This became the basis for the American Medical Association to favor nurses’ training (Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983). Most schools, though, were under the control of physicians, and had the apprenticeship form of education based on rules, principles, and traditions (McEwen & Wills, 2007). Nursing education at this time was more of  technical knowledge. The focus of nursing education and practice was on technical skills. The growth of  nursing collegiate programs was slow as physicians believed that “university-educated nurses were overtrained” ( McEwen & Wills, 2007).

Another milestone was achieved during this century: the emerging professional image of the nurse and the budding professional equality with medicine as commented by Gross (1869 as cited in Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983): “nursing in its exact sense is as much of an art and science as is medicine” (p. 54). The end of this century ushered advances for the 20^th century.

20th Century

This century saw nursing as a technical profession. Definitions of nursing after World War II “show a ‘tunneling’ of nursing into a highly technical profession with minimal involvement in the human societal issues” (Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983, p. 62). Nursing began to have definitions with scientific basis and the genesis of nursing theories in the 1960s resulted from highly technical nursing (Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983). The emergence of nursing science started at this point in history.

In the 1950s Columbia University’s Teachers College developed graduate education programs for administrative and faculty positions. The graduates (e.g., Peplau, Henderson, Hall, Abdellah) of these programs later conceptualized nursing science (George, 2002). As the number of nurses with higher education increased, nurses began to participate in research (Tomey&Alligood, 2002).

Theory development progressed in the 1960s. In 1965, ANA’s position paper concluded that theory development was one of the significant goals of nursing. ANA also supported efforts to develop the body of nursing to ultimately create a nursing science (ANA, 1965; Meleis, 1997 as cited in Potter & Perry, 2001). But what is Nursing Science? It is “the body of knowledge generated through the application of research process to events of concern to the discipline of nursing” (Lindeman &McAthie, 1999, p. 25). Nursing science produced knowledge for nursing practice through research.  Cody (1997) also provided his definition as such: …nursing science is the essence of nursing as a scholarly discipline; without it, there would be no nursing, only care…As a science, nursing’s richness is manifest in the availability of the cutting-edge philosophies and theories to provide guidance for practice…and a growing body of literature describing nursing theory-based practice…(pp. 12-13).

In the 1970s the “nursing profession viewed itself as a scientific discipline” (McEwen & Wills, 2007, p. 33). It had pluralistic definitions defined by many theorists as nursing moved toward the goal of developing nursing knowledge upon which to base practice. The definition by several nursing leaders articulated nursing as “knowledge-based, patient focused, and involving skills” (Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983, p. 57). This time was also referred as the nursing theory era which followed the research era. It became clear that research without theory produced isolated information. However, nursing science is produced by theory and research (Tomey&Alligood, 2002).Nursing science was highly influenced by logical positivism, a philosophical thought which “recognized only the logical and empirical base of science and there is no room for metaphysics, understanding, or meaning within the realm of science” (Polifroni& Welch, 1999 as cited in McEwen & Wills, 2007, p. 9). Nursing practice was determined by theory and research, and nursing at this time was considered an applied science (Lindeman &McAthie, 1999).

Many nursing theories emerged during this decade. The integration of theories and process (method of applying the theories), became the basis for professional nursing (Potter & Perry, 2001). Nursing, at this point, had acquired many of the characteristics of a profession: a growing knowledge base, authority over training and education, altruistic service, code of ethics, and registration requirements for practice; but to this date nursing’s autonomy in practice is incomplete because much of the practice is still directed by medicine (McEwen & Wills, 2007). Nonetheless, it can be said that “nursing is an aspiring, evolving profession” (Smith, 2000 as cited in McEwen & Wills, 2007, p. 4). As early as 1932, ANA (formerly the Nurses’ Associated Alumni in 1912) already issued the statement of the role of nurses and the nursing profession:

Professional nursing is a blend of intellectu*]}*al attainment, attributes and mental skillsbased upon the principles of scientific medicine, acquired by means of a prescribed course in a school of nursing affiliated with a hospital …and practice in conjunction with curative and preventative medicine by an individual licensed to do so (Brooks & Klein-Kracht, 1983, p. 54).