The meta paradigms of nursing form a comprehensive framework that serves to guide nurses across their professional activities. Their primary concepts comprise such aspects as an individual, health, nursing, and the environment (Deliktas et al., 2019). The combination of these elements creates an ultimate unity that defines nursing as a profession. From a personal standpoint, the Individual metaparadigm is highly important in the current environment. Today’s healthcare trends acknowledge the importance of patients as central figures in the process. While the patient-centered approach has already been established as a prominent technique, its understanding has evolved into a highly sophisticated, person-centered framework. According to Morton and Sellars (2019), this idea suggests that healthcare delivery is to be executed with dignity and respect to the needs and preferences of the patient. Such an approach corresponds with my personal views, as it recognizes patients as people with their feelings and opinions. Healthcare of the 21st century should respect the recipient of the service as much as the professional expertise of the clinical team.
At the same time, it is vital to remember the very central concept of healthcare that is embedded in the term. Health is the ultimate goal and the primary objective of the profession. While there exist various definitions of this concept, my philosophy views health as the alignment of a patient’s desired and actual condition. The ideal is hardly ever attainable in this context. However, such an understanding of the health metaparadigm is to serve as a personal point of reference and the constant impetus for professional activity. In other words, the overarching objective of nursing is to ensure the best quality of life possible for the patient from a medical perspective. This idea is related to the previously discussed element, as the pursuit of health is to be executed by the patient’s individual needs.
On the other hand, patients and nurses do not exist in a vacuum. Furthermore, today’s external environment has become more complex than ever. Globalization combined with the rapid development of technology introduces previously unseen challenges, but new opportunities emerge, as well. The influence of the environment on health is undeniable, and I divide it into two major categories. The physical factors comprise the immediate effect of ecological and environmental factors on an individual’s well-being. Air and water pollution, exposure to hazardous substances, and generally unsafe environments entail adverse implications in terms of public health. However, it would be dangerous to underestimate the role of social factors in this context. Today, broad social groups continue to experience healthcare disparities, which leave a lasting impact. For example, Egede and Walker (2020) conclude that structural racism has made a highly negative contribution to the health of African American communities. In my opinion, the role of nursing as a profession is to voice the concerns regarding such social issues and make them known to policy-makers. This mission promises to be a long fight, but the objective can be attained through collaborative professional efforts.
As can be inferred from the previous discussion, health, person, and environmental aspects of the metaparadigm exist in close connection to one another. These components form a highly complex framework, the relations within which are difficult to describe within a single scheme. From one perspective, the environment defines the health in the individual case of each person. On the other hand, personal health also determines the environment within communities to a degree. Overall, these crucial elements of the metaparadigm are united by the fourth major component, which is nursing. My perspective corresponds with the vision described by Dorothea Orem in her nursing theory. According to her, the ultimate goal of nursing is to provide a person with the required level of self-care capacity (Younas, 2017). In other words, a nurse should direct all the efforts toward supporting his or her patients’ agency and independence. Ultimately, my current nursing philosophy can be phrased as “doing my utmost to help my patients live the way they would like to in terms of health and light of their views.”
References
Deliktas, A., Korukcu, O., Aydin, R., & Kabukcuoglu, K. (2019). Nursing students’ perceptions of nursing metaparadigms: A phenomenological study. The Journal of Nursing Research, 27(5). Web.
Egede, L. E., & Walker, R. J. (2020). Structural racism, social risk factors, and covid-19 — A dangerous convergence for black Americans. The New England Journal of Medicine, 383. Web.
Morton, R. L., & Sellars, M. (2019). From patient-centered to person-centered care for kidney diseases. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 14(4). Web.
Younas, A. (2017). A foundational analysis of Dorothea Orem’s self-care theory and evaluation of its significance for nursing practice and research. Creative Nursing, 23(1), 103–108. Web.
