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TOPIC. The term nursing care is widely used throughout nursing and allied health literature; however, the meaning of the term is not clear.
PURPOSE. The purpose of this analysis is to explore the essence of the term nursing care and to develop an operational definition of the concept.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. Using the Walker and Avant (2005) method, dictionaries, thesauruses, and current nursing literature are studied for meanings, usages, and attributes. Model, borderline, and contrary cases are also presented.
CONCLUSIONS. Intended as a preliminary exploration of nursing care, this work serves as the foundation for further study of the concept.
Search terms: Concept analysis, care, nursing, nursing care
Introduction
What is nursing care? As the term is widely used throughout nursing and allied health literature, the answer to this question may seem obvious; however, a clear definition is not readily apparent within nursing literature. A recent search of the term in PubMed yielded 174,191 hits, yet a definition or analysis of the term could not be located. Thus, the purpose of this concept analysis is to explore and identify the essence of the term nursing care and to arrive at an operational definition of the concept.
Methodology
The author began this analysis by looking at various dictionary definitions of nurse/nursing and care/caring, and then proceeded to examine the definitions of nursing and caring as described in the major nursing theories and models. After completing those two steps, allied health literature was examined for use of the term. The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature search was limited to articles published in English within the last 6 years that contained nursing care in the title. Of those 1,632 articles, 16 (approximately 1%) were randomly selected for review. The concept analysis then proceeded according to the guidelines established by Walker and Avant (2005).
Uses of the Concept
After selecting a concept and determining the purpose of the analysis, the analyst must begin by identifying as many uses of the concept as possible (Walker & Avant, 2005). After distinguishing all usages, one may then consider which aspects of the concept are pertinent (Walker & Avant). This author began the process by consulting dictionaries, thesauruses, and nursing literature to determine uses and meanings of the words...