Understanding the Concepts of Person, Health, Environment, and Nursing

This article explores the concepts of person, health, environment, and nursing and their interplay in healthcare. It discusses the importance of considering both physical and mental health in patient care and the role of nurses in promoting well-being.

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The following is a personal reflection of my personal understanding about different
concepts like person, health, environment and nursing. This will be followed by reflecting my
though process under the framework of Mezirow’s (1990). At the end, the reflective paper
will help in the identification of the paradigm identifications and rational for the paradigm
identification. Two paradigm of focus include totality and simultaneity as stated by Parse’s
framework (1987).
Person
I would describe a person as mammals that fall in the category of vertebrate with four
limbs. A body of a person deals with complex interplay of organs (physiology) and emotions
(psychology). From my practice setting I see person being admitted to hospital will problems
in the physiological mechanism or with other psychological issues like depression. Here
physiology signifies physical health problems like cardiovascular problems, diabetes,
pulmonary complications, high blood pressure, skin diseases, fractures or pain. Psychological
problems mean mental health problems. For example depression, anxiety, stress or other
complex mental health disorders like schizophrenia or dementia. Schizophrenia or dementia
however has physiological pathophysiology like complication in the neurons. Thus it can be
said the mental and physical health are inter-related. I have written this because, as per the
taxonomic classifications, human begins are vertebrates and are mammals (Wilson et al.,
2016). It is human begins that health is modified by both the physical and mental health. This
is the reason why I have defined a person as a combination of physiology and psychology.
Jogerst et al. (2015) stated that proper physiology and psychological well-being helps to
define a health individual.

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The definition of person stated by me belongs to the meta-paradigm of totality. This is
because; here the person is defined as a combination of physiological parameters and
psychological parameters. Thus a person is viewed as an integration of biological
psychological elements and hence coincides with the nursing meta-paradigm criteria of
totality. During my clinical experience, I have seen that an older adult was admitted in the
hospital after encountering cardiovascular accident (stroke). Surgical installation of the pace-
maker helped that person to recover from his problematic physiological parameters like
hypertension and irregular breathing of heart. However, his right side of the body
encountered paralysis. He was admitted in post stroke rehabilitation unit where physiotherapy
helped to recover from the paralysis but he was depressed as he was unable to perform his
daily living activities. Mindfulness based therapy along with regular counselling helped him
to recover from his poor mental health condition. Thus it helped me to understand both
physical and psychological health is important for faster recovery of the person.
Environment
I would like to describe environment as the surrounding in which we live. It
constitutes the air, trees, other animals, insects and the other people (neighbours) or the
family members with who we live and grow old. From my practice settings I have seen that
not only the trees, the air, the soil but in my clinical settings the behaviour received from the
nurses also influence the health of an individual or person (healthcare service users), Here the
nurses and the hospital ambience act as the surrounding environment. Here the hospital
ambience means the hygiene quotient of the hospital, behaviour exhibited by the nurse like
active listening and respecting the dignity of the patients. I have written this because Flott and
Linden (2016) stated that environment like the surroundings; social surroundings or socio-
economic surroundings help to define the health of an individual. Improvement in the socio-

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economic surroundings like hygiene, finance or employmental status helps to improve the
health condition of a person. This is the reason I have written that environment of the hospital
helps to improve the health of the patients. My definition of socio-economic condition like
health is influenced definition of the Australian Government Department of Health (2019)
that has defined that poor socio economic condition is the reason behind poor health
condition of the Aboriginals in Australia.
My definition of environment is influenced by the meta-paradigm of totality. This is
because, I have broken the environment into both living and non-living things along with the
external and internal surroundings. Thus environment is not a rigid component but it is sub-
divided into various sub-parts like social surroundings and availability of the resources that
help to improve the mental state of mind of an individual. In my clinical practise settings I
have seen that aboriginals who hail from the poor socio-economic background are the victims
of infectious diseases like diarrhoea and influenza and typhoid in comparison to the
individuals who are from the non-aboriginal background. Cuningham et al. (2019) are of the
opinion that the lack of proper sanitization, gap in maintaining basic hygienic needs and lack
of proper nutritional balance and healthy living are the reasons behind the high outbreak of
the infectious diseases. Education of the aboriginals about the importance of the maintenance
of proper health and hygiene with the help of effective communication skills and display of
the compassionate behaviour, helped to promote health awareness among the aboriginals
(improvement in the social surroundings with compassionate behaviour). Moreover,
assistance with proper resources like sanitization helped to reduce the rate of occurrence of
infectious disease among the aboriginals (Cuningham et al., 2019).

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Health
Health is a combination of both mental and physical health as human body is a
complex interplay of physiology and psychology. This is because in hospital settings patients
are admitted either with physical health complications or with mental health complications or
with both. Both physical and mental health promotes well-being of the patient by promoting
faster recovery. I have written this because my understanding of health is guided by the
readings of (Alghamdi, 2016). The concept of health is a balance between a person and
environment. The readings of McCormack and McCance (2016) have helped me to
understand that health is a unity of soul and body and the natural origin of disease. This is the
reason why I have written that health is a complex interplay of physiology and psychology.
McCormack and McCance (2016) stated that as per Pindar, health is a harmony of different
functional organs. This emphasizes the physical dimension of health that is physical body and
the overall functionality. It is further guided by comfort and absence of pain. In my
healthcare settings I have seen that pain hampers mental peace and also causes physiological
discomfort. That is why I have defined the concept health as psychology and physiology.
From my personal understanding I have seen that people who live in healthy communities,
have a proper diet and other health interventions are found to maintain a healthy status in life.
Here the health is defined as a combination of the physical health (physiological
health) and mental health (psychological health). Thus health is not a rigid component but it
can be sub-divided into physical and the mental health and thus belong to the meta-paradigm
of the totality. In order words, it can be said that proper promotion of the physical and the
mental health helps to improve the overall wellbeing of an individual. In my practice settings
I have seen one man who was suffering from prolong illness, pneumonia. He was admitted in
the ICU for 21 days. However, though his physical health was improving as evident from the
improvement in the oxygen saturation, decrease in the C-reactive protein (CRP) in the blood

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and decrease in the sputum in the pulmonary cavities, his overall health status was not
improving. He was visibly depressed as he was unable to perform his daily living activities
and he was refusing to take food by his mouth. This attitude was slowing his process of
recovery. Proper support from the mental health professionals with the help of person centred
interventions helped him to recover from depression and subsequent assistance in intake of
oral food. This helped to speed the process of recovery. This example helped me to
understand that both the physical and mental health parameters are important.
Nursing
Nursing is a profession of healthcare. The role of nursing in healthcare is to assist the
doctors for comprehensive procurement of care through pharmacological innervations.
Nursing also works beyond that by emphasising on the mental well-being of the patients
through non-pharmacological interventions in order improve fast patient recovery. I have
written this because, my understanding about the concept of nursing as a professional is
mainly guided by the definition of the World Health Organisation (WHO). According to this
organisational definition nursing mainly includes an autonomous and collaborative care for
the individuals of all the ages, families, group of individuals, and group of community
dwelling individuals across all the settings. Nursing also includes promotion of health and at
the same time helps in the prevention of illness while providing care for the terminally ill
patients. That is why I have defined health as a concept of pharmacological and physiological
well-being. Pharmacological interventions deal with usage of medicines. Non-
pharmacological interventions deal with usage of mental counselling or mindfulness based
interventions in order to improve the well-being.
The profession of nursing deals with the procurement of the pharmacological and
non-pharmacological interventions and thus the professional is sub-divided into two different

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pillars. This sub-division helped to coincide with the nursing meta-paradigm of the totality.
Under my practice settings I have learnt from my senior registered nurses that not only the
pharmacological intervention like proper procurement of the medicines on scheduled time
and dosage, but also the non-pharmacological intervention like the mindfulness based
therapy, music therapy and effective communication skills help to improve the overall health
status of an individual. Proper communication helps to generate therapeutic relationship with
the patients and this help to increase the therapy adherence and disease awareness and
thereby helping to improve the overall health-outcome by speeding the process of recovery
(King et al., 2015).
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that main paradigm highlighted in
all the four definitions is totality. The paradigm of the totality highlights that logical
empirical orientation of viewing the world in general. Under totality approach it can be that
health, and nursing or individuals consists of both mental and physical health. That means the
person, nursing concept and health can be divided into sub-parts of mental and physical
health. This is opposed to simultaneity which states that a simultaneity paradigm cannot be
broken into any sub-parts. The definition of environment helps in the modification of health,
the approach of nursing and well-being of a person.

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References
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management, 24(4), 449-457.
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%20Torres%20Strait%20Islander%20Health-1lp
Cuningham, W., McVernon, J., Lydeamore, M. J., Andrews, R. M., Carapetis, J., Kearns,
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