Page 98 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

F r o m ca ra t i v e F a c t o r 4 t o C a r i t a s P r o C e s s 4
• Emotional and spiritual well-being (dignity, self-control,
personhood)
• Enhanced healing and enhanced relationship with others.
The consequences of noncaring were reported to be:

• Feelings of humiliation, fear
• Feeling out of control, desperate
• Feeling helpless, alienated, and vulnerable.

These same outcomes of caring and noncaring were mirrored by
nurses. For example, for nurses practicing caring, the outcomes were:
• A sense of personal and professional satisfaction and fulfillment
• A love of nursing
• The ability to live out their own philosophy.

Consequences of noncaring for nurses were:

• Feeling hardened, oblivious, depressed
• Feeling frightened, brittle
• Feeling worn down. (Swanson 1999)
These findings continue to both haunt and remind us that effects
of caring and relationship are critical to outcomes for patients and
nurses alike. However, while a wealth of empirical, qualitative, theo-
retical, and philosophical data suggest the importance of the caring
relationship to the health and well-being of nurses and their patients,
it must be acknowledged that limited quantitative research supports
these qualitative views and studies (Quinn et al. 2003). This situation
is all the more an indicator for additional research within the Caring
Science framework.
Such acknowledgment underscores the position that at a basic dis-
ciplinary level, the caring relationship is core to the meta-narrative that
defines the ethics, values, and theoretical and philosophical norms for
the profession. The fact that almost every extant nursing theory, pro-
fessional nursing curriculum, and professional practice model empha-
sizes the caring relationship in some form, and the fact that qualitative

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