THE IMPORTANCE OF VALUES OF PROFESSIONAL NURSES

AND ALTRUISM IN NURSING PRACTICES

By Adinda Aisyah Wulandari

Nurses are health workers who most often interact with patients, nurses will always be there
from the time the patient comes to the hospital or health center until the patient returns to his
place of residence. According to Virginia Henderson in her nursing theory, nurses do not only
care about someone who is sick but also for someone who is healthy, even nurses will
continue to interact with patients who are no longer able to recover (Berman, Snyder, &
Frandsen, 2016). The nurse will always be willing to accompany the patient during their
treatment by listening to the patient's complaints, fulfilling the patient's basic needs, and
sometimes even the nurse gets scorned by the patient.
According to ANA (2003) in Berman, Snyder, & Frandsen (2016) nursing is "protection,
promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of disease and injury,
alleviation of suffering through diagnosis and treatment of human responses, and advocacy in
the care of individuals, families, community, and population ". Meanwhile, nurses are a
profession that performs nursing actions. Nursing is called a profession because it is a job that
requires broad and high education and requires special skills and knowledge.
In doing their job as medical professional, nurses need to equip themselves with professional
nurse values. Value is "self-belief about the value of an idea, habitual attitude, or object that
becomes a standard and influences behavior" (Potter and Perry, 2017). It can be said that
values are the result of our view of something that can change our attitude. Values are
divided into two, namely personal values and professional values. Professional value will be
obtained by someone through a professional code of ethics, experience, educators, and peers
(Berman, Snyder, & Frandsen, 2016). Professional values will guide nurses in doing their job.
Altruism is one of the values of professional nurses. Altruism is a person's encouragement
with the aim of improving welfare (Batson, 2011). According to KBBI, welfare itself is
security, safety, serenity. In nursing altruism can be seen from the attitude of nurses who care
about patients, other nurses, or other health workers. Jean Watson through Human Caring
Theory stated that there are ten carative factors related to Caring in nursing practice. One of
these carative factors is adhering to altruistic values and applying love to oneself and others
(Berman, Snyder, & Frandsen, 2016). Jean Watson also believes that Caring is central and
focused in nursing practice. This proves that altruism is closely related to nursing practice
because by applying altruistic values nurses will show Caring's attitude. The Caring attitude
given to patients can improve mutual trust, physical recovery, and a sense of comfort and
safety, besides that it can increase energy and reduce treatment costs (Watson, 2012 in
Firmansyah, Noprianty, & Karana, 2019)
Altruism can also affect a patient's belief about a cure for his illness. This is evidenced by
research by Nurqonitatin (2006) in Dewi & Hidayati (2015) which states that nurses who
have an altruistic attitude can motivate patients to immediately recover from their illness.
Conversely, nurses who have a low altruistic attitude can reduce the patient's motivation to
recover because it can give a bad impression on the patient.
Batson (2011) through A Theory of Altruistic Motivation states that welfare-oriented feelings
felt by others can generate motivation to improve that person's welfare. Referring to that
question, he said that empathy is one of the sources for someone to do altruistic actions. The
professional standard of nurses states that compassion and empathy can direct nursing care by
generating a desire to understand patient feelings and encouraging action to try to improve
patient comfort and well-being (Sheldon, 2010 in Dewi & Hidayati, 2015). In addition,
empathy has a very good impact on patients. Empathy can calm and show a caring attitude in
the patient and form relationships that help in healing (Berman, Snyder, & Frandsen, 2016).
Therefore, it is important for nurses to instill an attitude of empathy from an early age so that
they can apply it when caring for patients.
As a health professional, a nurse is required to apply professional nurse values. That way,
nurses are expected to be able to provide good nursing care to patients that can help patients
in the healing process. This will certainly give a positive impression to the patient so that it
will raise a good image of the nursing profession in society and public trust in the nursing
profession will also increase.

Reference:

Batson, CD (2011). Altruism in humans. Oxford University Press

Berman, A., Snyder, S., & Frandsen, G. (2016). Kozier & Erbs fundamentals of nursing:
concepts, practice, and process (10th ed.). Boston: Pearson
Dewi, SR, & Hidayati, F. (2015). Self-Compassion and Altruism in Inpatient Nurses of
Salatiga City Hospital. Journal of Empathy, vol 4 (1), 169.
Firmansyah, CS, Noprianty, R., Karana, I. (2019). Nurse Caring Behavior Based on Jean
Watson's Theory in the Inpatient Room. Journal of Vocational Health, vol 4 (1), 37
KBBI. (nd). Indonesia Dictionary. Retrieved from
Professionalism:https://kbbi.web.id/keseelfare
Potter, Patricia., Perry, Anne. (2017). Fundamentals of Nursing 9th Edition. United States of
America: Elsevier Inc