Watson’s Caring Behavior

Watson’s Caring Behavior
The nursing career is penetrated by men and women who perceive nursing as a profession that cares for people and their needs. The primary goal of nursing is to provide care for the needs of the patients; thus, compassion becomes a key trait required with nurses. As it is believed that, “It is not enough to provide care without truly caring about the person.” Therefore, Jean Watson comes in with a theory of human caring to address ways in which the caregiving act is to be dispensed by the nurses as it contributes to the healing process of the patients.
In the nursing model, it is stated that nursing exercise comprises of health promotion activities, prevention of illnesses, taking care of the sick, and restoring the individual health. Therefore, much emphasis is laid on promoting wellbeing together with treating the diseases and ailments (Maville & Huerta, 2008). However, Watson argues that caring is pivotal to nursing exercise and can better promote the health of individual patients than just a medical cure simply given without care and precautions. She, therefore, believes in a holistic approach in dispensing healthcare services through the nursing profession (Petiprin, 2016).
Jean alluded to the notion that care has existed and been practiced by nurses in various societies. However, an attitude that of caring is not being carried from one generation to the other except by nursing culture, which she expressed as an environmentally unique coping manner (“Watson: Theory of Human Caring,” 2016). Therefore, according to human caring theory, as put forth by Watson, nurses not only should practice caring, but also demonstrate it for it enhances healing to the patients, promotes their growth, and more importantly it gives hope to the patients through acceptance of their present condition work towards what the patient may become or look like in the future.
Like other nursing theories, Watson’s theory of caring behavior demonstrated faith in the metaparadigm concepts of caring in nursing, which include human beings, nursing, environment, and health (Watson, 1999). However, she only defined and penned three of them. These are health, human being, and nursing. Jean Watson, in her philosophical point, defined a human being as “a fully functional integrated self.” That is, a human being must be valued in him or herself, be helped, nurtured, cared for, and also well understood. “Human is viewed as greater than and different from the sum of his or her parts,” She added (Watson, 1999).
Jean has not only recognized health as the complete state of an individual in all the aspects, and the mere absence of illness as some scientists have put it, but she as well as recognized the presence of concentrated efforts towards creating a state or condition of absence illnesses and diseases. She expressed this in the following words, “…as a high level of overall physical, mental, and social functioning; a general adaptive-maintenance level of daily functioning; and the absence of illness, or the presence of efforts leading to the absence of illness.” Finally, Watson gives this act of providing care-nursing a different perspective view from other theorists. In her different school of thought, she defines nursing as a “…science of persons and health-illness experience that are mediated by professional, personal, scientific, and ethical care interactions” (Watson, 2011). She acknowledges nursing to be comprised of various elements, such as people, illnesses, scientific and personal interventions, interacting ethically.
Watson skips the fourth concept of the nursing practice and goes ahead to devise ten (10) specific caring needs, which she called carative factors (Watson, 2007). Watson argues that these carative factors are central to the exercise of caregiving that is to be demonstrated to the patients by the caregivers during the caring exercise. The 10 caratives remained to be the original foundation of her theory and with time, evolved to be the processes of caritas. The ten original carative factors as listed by Watson include;
i. Forming humanistic-altruistic value systems,
ii. instilling faith-hope,
iii. cultivating a sensitivity to self and others,
iv. developing a helping-trust relationship,
v. promoting the expression of feelings,
vi. using problem-solving for decision-making,
vii. promoting teaching-learning,
viii. fostering a supportive environment,
ix. assisting with the gratification of human needs, and
x. Allowing for existential-phenomenological forces.
Watson expressed her first carative factor to the third factor as the philosophical foundation for human caring behavior. In contrast, the other seven carative factors were derived from philosophical foundations.
Watson genuinely recognized the need to interlace nursing humanistic aspects into the nursing practice with scientific knowledge. Therefore, the Watson nursing model outlines a similar nursing process to those in the scientific research process which include; assessment of the patient or the problem, developing a care plan that would act as a guide during the care, implementing the intervention of the care plan, and finally evaluating the results and findings (Gerrish & Lacey, 2010).
Watson’s contribution to the nursing profession does not stop at developing theory but goes deep into the identification of human needs that needs to be observed, protected, respected, and promoted for those under nursing care. She categorizes the human necessities into four different categories with two major phrases, “lower-orders” and “higher-orders” (Benson, 2007). Thus, she came up with a hierarchy of needs called Watson Hierarchy of Needs. In trying to explain the gratification of human needs, she begins her hierarchy with the “lower-order biophysical needs,” which later she called the “survival needs.” For example, ventilation, food, among others. Watson argued that the removal of any of these survival needs from the life of patients, people, or human beings would result in the end of life or possess a life-threatening situation. These needs are followed closely with “lower-order psychophysical needs,” which were then referred to as the “functional needs.” These functional needs comprise of lack of activity, “inactivity,” “sexuality,” and “activity.” Following were the “higher-order psychosocial needs,” which are the “affiliation” and the sense of “achievement.” The “higher-order intrapersonal-interpersonal need,” which is the “self-actualization,” became the last need to be satisfied in Watson’s hierarchy of needs (Watson, 2012).
In conclusion, Watson’s theory of caring provides a framework for the preservation of human dignity in the nursing practice and the sustainability of caring in threatening conditions.
References
Benson, N. (2007). Introducing Psychology. Duxford: Icon Books Ltd.
Gerrish, K., & Lacey, A. (2010). The research process in nursing… Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Jean Watson: Theory of Human Caring. (2016). Retrieved 23 January 2020, from https://nurseslabs.com/jean-watsons-philosophy-theory-transpersonal-caring/
Maville, J., & Huerta, C. (2008). Health promotion in nursing. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.
Petiprin, A. (2016). Jean Watson – Nursing Theory. Retrieved 23 January 2020, from https://nursing-theory.org/nursing-theorists/Jean-Watson.php
Watson, J. (1999). Nursing. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Watson, J. (2007). Watson’s theory of human caring and subjective living experiences: carative factors/caritas processes as a disciplinary guide to professional nursing practice. Retrieved 23 January 2020, from http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-07072007000100016
Watson, J. (2011). Nursing, Revised Edition. Sebastopol: University Press of Colorado.
Watson, J. (2012). Human caring science. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Learning.