Page 319 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

Inte r n A t Ion A l cA r Ing d At A r es eArch I c c pro j e c t s
THE CARING INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE
Nelson—CPS
The Caring International Research Collaborative was initiated to con-
nect multiple specialty research groups for the purpose of sharing and
exploring how their respective areas of research connect with one
another. The goal of the collaborative is to create a Structural Equation
Model (SEM), which is a model that explains how variables within the
health care environment interact to impact patient outcomes, includ-
ing perception of caring. One of the instruments used as part of this
activity is the Caring Factor Survey, which was designed to assess car-
ing within the context of Watson’s theory of caring and recent work
in Caritas nursing (www.uchsc.edu/nursing/caring).
Recent research in caring from this collaborative has identified
that nurses who are reported to be most caring by the patients they
care for provide the most consistent care, are nurses with the most
professional nursing experience, are most affected emotionally by
the patient, do not work overtime, are from every age category, and
are most frustrated with the work environment, especially workload
(Persky et al. 2008). The 2007 international database, which includes
over 500 patients from Italy, the Philippines, and the United States,
revealed that among the caring factors, nurses were consistently rated
highest in conveying loving kindness to their patient and lowest in
tending to the spiritual needs of patients. This measurement will assist
with theory testing and refinement of the caring process.
Continued validation of measurement of caring is planned by
relating the patients’ reports of feeling cared for to blood components
that are present when they feel stressed (cortisol), love (DHEA), and
physically resilient (IgA). Understanding how the patients’ report of
feeling cared for relates to their physical state goes beyond validating
measurement of caring to articulate the relationship this feeling has to
healing. This challenge will require measurement of other variables
that likely influence healing, including the environmental aspects from
which nurses, physicians, and other care providers work.
Factors that are currently being examined in relationship to car-
ing include workload, primary nursing, management, competence,
knowledge management, HeartMath, caring, HIV/AIDS, Healthcare

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