Paper: Caring Phenomena of Practicing Nurses: Knowing, Patience, and Courage (40th Biennial Convention (October 31st- November 4th, 2009))

Sunday, November 1, 2009: 2:45 PM

Elizabeth Pross, PhD, RN¹
Nancy S. Hilton, RN, MN²
Anne Boykin, PhD, RN¹
Jesse Gabuat, MSN, RN³
1Christine E Lynn College of Nursing, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
2Nursing, St. Lucie Medical Center, Port St. Lucie, FL
3Gen. Med/Surg and Ortho/Neuro Departments, St. Lucie Medical Center, Port St. Lucie, FL

Presentation File (PDF Format)

Learning Objective 1: identify the call for nursing colleagues to support nurses in their living caring in practice.

Learning Objective 2: identify at least two of three caring abilities of practicing nurses identified in this study.

Theoretical Framework. All persons are caring and are continually growing in ability to express caring (Mayeroff, 1972). It is important to come to know nursing colleagues as caring in order to nurture and support colleagues in living caring in nursing practice (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2001).

Purpose. Researchers studied caring phenomena among practicing nurses in an organization prior to a planned intervention in which an organization will adopt caring values and nursing departments adopt Nursing as Caring theory. The organization will be studied again after a planned intervention to determine specific outcomes. This current study builds on earlier research of Nursing as Caring in a telemetry unit and emergency department (Boykin, Schoenhofer, et. al. & Boykin, Bulfin S, et. al., 2004)

Design and Methods. In a nonexperimental correlational design, Nkongho’s Caring Ability Inventorys (CAI) were completed by 131 practicing nurses at one for-profit health care organization located in a southeastern United States city. All nurses at this organization were invited to be participants. Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlations were used to analyze data.

Results. With Cronback’s alphas of .77, .73 and .65 for the subscales and .82 for CAI total, results showed highest scores for subscale Knowing, followed by Patience and then Courage. Pearson correlations revealed statistical significance with the three subscales. As Knowing increased so did Patience. Interestingly, as Knowing or Patience increased, Courage decreased. Extant literature revealed while courage in nursing practice is essential and significant, it’s mostly invisible in practice and in the literature (Clancy, 2003; Day 2007; Spence & Smythe, 2007; & Walston 2003).

Conclusions and Relevance. This study confirmed practicing nurses were able to reveal caring abilities prior to an intervention introducing caring values and theory. Potentially, findings in this study will guide caring theory in nursing practice, education, and theory.

References
Boykin A & Schoenhofer S (2001) Nursing as Caring. A Model for Transforming Practice. Jones & Bartlett, Sudbury, Ma.

Boykin A, Schoenhofer S, Smith N, & St Jean J, & Aleman D (2003) Transforming practice using a caring-based model. Nursing Administration Quarterly 27, 223-230.

Boykin A, Bulfin S, Baldwin J, & Southern R (2004) Transforming care in the emergency department. Topics Emergency Medicine 26, 331-36.

Clancy T (2003) Courage and today’s nurse leaders. Nursing Administration Quarterly 27, 128-132.

Day L (2007) Courage as a virtue necessary to good nursing practice. American Journal of Critical Care 16, 613-616.

Mayeroff M (1972) On caring. Harper and Row Publishers, New York.

Spence D & Smythe L (2007) Courage as integral to advancing nursing practice. Nursing
Praxis in New Zealand 23, 43-55.

Walston S (2003) Courage and caring: Step up to your next level of nursing excellence.
Patient Care Management 19, 4-6.

See more of: Nurses in Practice and Research
See more of: Oral Paper & Poster: Science Sessions