Florence Nightingale's Theory on Nursing Meta-Paradigms

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The Evolution of Theoretical Knowledge
(The Nightingale theory)
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
First concept: Person (my definition)..........................................................................................................2
First concept: Person (Florence Nightingale's definition)............................................................................2
Experience...................................................................................................................................................3
Second Concept: Health (my definition).....................................................................................................3
Second concept: Health (Florence Nightingale’s definition).......................................................................4
Experience...................................................................................................................................................5
Third concept: Environment (my definition)...............................................................................................5
Third concept: Environment (Florence Nightingale’s definition)................................................................6
Experience...................................................................................................................................................6
Fourth concept: Nursing (my definition).....................................................................................................7
Fourth concept: Nursing (Florence Nightingale’s definition)......................................................................7
Experience...................................................................................................................................................8
Florence Nightingale: Totality.....................................................................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The paper reflects upon the Florence Nightingale theory that describes the concepts of
Meta paradigms in the nursing practice. It will discuss the concepts of nursing Meta-paradigms
that play a vital role in the patient's recovery. Nursing comprises of for major concepts of Meta
paradigms they are Person, health, nursing, and environment. It is important understand the
desired concept o totality as it reveals the sum of the parts that becomes equal to the whole. The
primary aim is to compare the previous definitions of the concepts with todays. It will also
discuss the transformation that has occurred or needs to be modified considering the health of a
patient. For over a hundred years the nightingale's theory has been utilized and still today most of
the nursing profession finds it difficult to understand (Nightingale, 2018).
First concept: a person (my definition)
The first concept of meta-paradigm is determined to be a person or human being. A
person can be defend as a child, woman or man of the species that differs from other animals by
superior upright stance, articulate speech and mental development (Fairbrother, Chiarella &
Braithwaite, 2015). According to my definition related to a person or human being states that a
person is a concept that is based on psychological and physiological needs. As per the
description provided, the five-person variables are defined to be the body, mind, spiritual and
social. I believe that person or patient plays a vital role in the nursing practice, hence it is the
primary responsibility of the nurse to give special importance to the needs of the patient. It is
stated that to understand a patient's particular requirements; it is important to understand the
patient and to provide personalized care (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2015).

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First concept: person (Florence Nightingale’s definition)
As per Nightingale, a person is referred to as being composed of spiritual, social,
psychological and biological concepts as well as being multidimensional. She describes this by
saying that it is impossible to build a human body as a prescription is made (Létourneau, Cara &
Goudreau, 2017). Nightingale describes the fact that even when a person is sick, still the person
comprises of a sense of autonomy. According to her, a sick person should be given full attention
at every moment whenever he is talking something related to business (Hanna, 2018). I agree
with the concept of the theory that is stated by Nightingale as it describes the fact that in the
nursing metaparadigm the most important concept is person or patient. As per Nightingale, this
should be done to provide convenience to the patient so that he or she should feel comfortable
within the environment. It is observed that at the beginning the concept of person refers to the
lifestyle of an individual while now it is transformed into the multidimensional factors (Mackey
& Bassendowski, 2017).
Moreover, Nightingale had used the term multidimensional factors to explain the concept
of a person. As I have not used the term multidimensional in my definition hence, I agree with
her definition. She has described the importance of multidimensional factors in her definition
which I have not discussed that presents the fact my definition has not gone through the actual
definition of a human being.
Experience
I strongly believe that my definition of a person is influenced by my workplace
environment. At the time of placement once I was given a chance to handle a malnourished
patient. While interacting with that patient, I come to know that the patient is suffering from this
disease due to his poor income. The patient does not get sufficient food that resulted in the