Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring

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Despite being neglected and underestimated in the overall process of medical care provision, nursing is currently recognized to play the key role in the healing process. Nurses are the first people to be near the patient when the doctor’s mission has already been fulfilled and the patient is placed in his room for recovery. It is the nurse who monitors the current state of health of the patient, who interacts with the patient’s family more often and more intensely, and can provide them all with reassurance, help and support. For this reason nursing has acquired a more significant role in medicine and hospital operation.

There is a plenty of theories stating the role and responsibilities of a nurse, admitting the extent to which the nurse should participate in the healing process and what qualities he/she should possess to satisfy the needs of the patient. All researchers recognize the vital necessity of active participation of the nurse in the life of the patient, nurturing his or her spirituality and providing the multi-level assistance, not only direct medical one. However, the theory of human caring worked out by Jean Watson is a real breakthrough in nursing in general – it is innovative because of the equal role of the caregiver and the one cared for:

Jean Watson views caring as the most valuable attribute nursing has to offer to humanity, yet caring has received less emphasis than other aspects of the practice of nursing over time. In Watson’s view, the disease might be cured but illness would still remain because without caring, health is not fully attained (Quizon et al., 2008).

Traditionally, the attention of researchers was focused on concepts of the patients’ needs, thus neglecting the emotions, the personal feelings and perception of the caregiver. Jean Watson focuses her main attention on three main concepts: carative factors, transpersonal caring moment and caring moment/caring occasion (Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, 2009). Carative factors provided by this researcher include both participants united by a caring moment and investigate the possible range of relations and actions that may be taken by both in order to establish a successful relationship and to facilitate the process of recovery.

The situation that is to be analyzed from the point of view of Jean Watson’s theory is the following. “Once when I was working in post partum we had a young girl who was pregnant and in the hospital with dehydration and a urinary tract infection. She also had a 2 year old child and no one to take care of the child while she was in the hospital. I took the time to talk with her, her mom and dad had both died and her husband was in Iraq.

We had put a baby bed in the room for her but she was in a lot of pain and was having a very hard time taking care of the 2 year old. I would stay after my shift and take care of the 2 year old for her until he fell asleep, and I came in on my days off to help her. She was a very sweet girl and I felt very bad for her. After she was discharged from the hospital she sent me a card with a letter in it telling me how thankful she was and what a difference I had made in her life and her heeling. I have never forgotten that”.

Analyzing the described situation from the point of view of Watson’s theory of human caring, it is important to outline the main carative factors that are present in the story. With this purpose one needs to estimate the overall set of carative factors Watson pays attention to. They are:

humanistic-altruistic system of value;
faith-hope;
sensitivity to self and others;
helping-trusting, human care relationship;
expressing positive and negative feelings;
creative problem solving caring process;
transpersonal teaching-learning;
supportive, protective, and/or corrective mental, physical, societal and spiritual environment;
human needs assistance;
existential-phenomenological-spiritual forces (Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, 2009).

Looking at the defined carative factors, it is possible to say that in the present situation the nurse was of course an active participant in the destiny of the woman who got into such a horribly complicated life situation. She was in a desperate position and had nobody to help her; for this reason the transpersonal caring moment established between her and the nurse was a true example of what Jean Watson is calling everyone for.

The first carative factor in this situation is the humanistic-altruistic system of value. The nurse understood the problem of the your girl very well, and went further than that – she offered her not only compassion and sympathy, support in her position, but became an active participant of the events being not only next to her to reassure and comfort her, but to so something that was of real value, of real help.

This is how it is possible to characterize the help with the second child who was 2 years old and could not take care of himself. Arranging a place for the child to stay, taking care of him because of his mother’s being in pain and being unable to do this independently – this was the humanistic attention from the side of the nurse. Altruistic attitude may be seen in the way the nurse treated the family of the young girl and her child – she ignored her own necessities and remained after her shift, took the child to bed, came during her weekends while normally she would have a rest on that days. She neglected her own needs and fully dedicated herself to the patients she had because she knew they had nobody else but her. So this factor was absolutely fully present in the described situation.

Helping-trusting, human care relationship can also be traced in the situation being discussed. The girl trusted the woman who remained near her in her hard moments, and appreciated her help highly. The nurse at that moment was not only a medical worker who fulfilled her direct responsibilities laid on her by her position – she exercised not only medical care but first of all human care. She was interested in the destiny of that girl; she asked her about her life and sympathized with her through spiritual help and practical assistance. This is why one can see that the relations of helping-trusting were successfully established and did not remain unilateral. The girl appreciated the nurse’s help and trusted her, which she later indicated in her card, and the nurse in her turn provided the girl and her child with the maximum of help, understanding, support and inspiration she could.

The third carative factor to be assessed is the creative problem solving caring process. It goes without saying that the decision to take the child to the hospital room of his mother and to let him stay there was a creative decision, since it was possible to give the child to the special caring establishment for the period of his mother’s illness – this service is surely provided by law in such cases. However, it is necessary to remember that the girl, even being in pain and suffering much, was still a mother, so the absence of her child would be a real stress for her: she would constantly be worried about him, which would slow down the process of recovery and would even put it in risk.

Thus, the decision to arrange a separate bed for the child and let them stay together was a really creative approach to the issue, including the hardships the nurse took over only to provide her patient with comfort and calmness.

Human needs assistance is the factor also relevant to the issue, including the essence of what the nurse was doing in the situation with that young girl. First of all, the initial need of the girl was medical assistance because of her health problems and the risk to lose her child.

For the purpose of not letting this happen the girl was hospitalized and was taken care of by the professionals. Another need of hers, which was equally important for the girl, was to take care of her young child, since she was a mother and could not let her child alone. Combining satisfaction of both these needs is a real challenge, and it would be impossible to accomplish the task for one person. For this reason the nurse took the whole responsibility for the needs of the girl on herself, taking care of both the girl and the child. Consequently, it is possible to say that the task of a nurse in this situation was accomplished more than fully.

It is also notable that the carative factor of expressing positive and negative feelings was absent – the nurse was surely the least beneficiary in the present situation and was the one who did the most sacrificing her own life and her own needs. There is no chance that she was completely satisfied with having no free time and working at the weekends. However, she never mentioned her inconvenience in the situation, which contradicts the theory of Jean Watson about the equality of roles of the nurse and the patient. Here only the personality and the needs of the patient were considered.

Summing everything that has been said up, it is necessary to admit that the situation fully corresponds to the theory of Jean Watson, which was shown by the analysis according to the key carative factors stipulated by her. However, the personality of the nurse was neglected and underestimated, which comes into a certain contradiction with the premises of the theory. In general, the transpersonal caring moment was created, so it is possible to say that the main objective of Watson – to emphasize “the humanistic aspects of nursing in combination with scientific knowledge” – was successfully accomplished in the situation discussed (Overview of Jean Watson’s Theory, 2009).

Works Cited

Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring (2009). Web.

Overview of Jean Watson’s Theory (2009). Vanguard Health Systems. Web.

Quizon, M. B. (2008). A Calling to Care. Web.

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Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring

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