636392
editorial2016
NSQXXX10.1177/0894318416636392Nursing Science QuarterlyParse / Editorial
Editorial
Where Have All the Nursing
Theories Gone?
Rosemarie Rizzo Parse, RN; PhD; FAAN1
Keywords
discipline-specific nursing knowledge, nursing science
Yes, where have all the nursing theories gone? This seems
like a logical question after reading Nursing Outlook’s spe-
cial issue on nursing science (“Council for the Advancement,”
2015), which is totally devoid of any mention of what is
commonly known as nursing theory. The authors (most are
fellows in the American Academy of Nursing) of the four
articles, three commentaries, and one response to the com-
mentaries about “nursing science” integrated ideas from the
Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science regarding
PhD education. The authors had similar messages—all of
which focused on what should be included as nursing science
in PhD education. The emphasis was on the biological and
behavioral sciences, including but not limited to technolo-
gies, omics, and symptom science as the essential content of
nursing science at the PhD level.
The explicit and tacit message is that all nursing knowl-
edge derives from positivism and biomedical sources. The
nurse leaders who authored these articles and commentaries
wrote that nursing science should include more of the bio-
logical and behavioral sciences so nurse scientists could be
more competitive with other scientists, rather than consider-
ing nurse scholars’ unique contributions to the human-uni-
verse-health phenomenon. These authors ignored the
theoretical work of a century of nurse theorists and scholars
who strove to design theories that made up the body of nurs-
ing knowledge. These theorists—for example, Peplau
(1988), Rogers (1992), and many others who created the
foundation of nursing science—fostered beliefs and values
that cocreated a unique nursing discipline focusing on the
health of human beings as whole entities, concerned with
adaptation, self-care, goal-attainment, caring, humanbecom-
ing, energy fields, expanding consciousness, and cultural
care (see Smith & Parker, 2015).
The latter notion of what constitutes nursing science has
been both the hallmark of editorials and articles published in
Nursing Science Quarterly for 29 years and a consistent sub-
ject of other nursing-science focused journals. What nursing
science is has been defined specifically by nurse scholars
throughout the current and last century (Barrett, 2002; Cody
& Mitchell, 2002; Eriksson, 2002; King & Fawcett, 1997;
Parse, 1987, 2000, 2015a, 2015b; Peplau, 1988; Rogers,
1992; and many others) (see Smith & Parker 2015). In fact,
Nursing Science Quarterly
2016, Vol. 29(2) 101­–102
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DOI: 10.1177/0894318416636392
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in 2000 the American Academy of Nursing’s Expert Panel on
Nursing-Theory Guided Practice formulated, agreed upon,
and published the following statement about nursing
science:
Nursing science, a basic science, is the substantive discipline-
specific knowledge that focuses on the human-universe-health
process articulated in the nursing frameworks and theories. The
discipline-specific knowledge resides within schools of thought
that reflect differing philosophical perspectives that give rise to
ontological, epistemological, and methodological processes for
the development and use of knowledge concerning nursing’s
unique phenomenon of concern. (Parse, et al, 2000)
The authors of the “nursing science” articles in Nursing
Outlook described above seem to have dismissed this
description of nursing science, so judiciously defined by one
of the Academy’s expert panels.
The term nursing science calls forth a worldwide meaning
that long has been accepted and referred to as the predomi-
nant extant nursing theories underpinned by strong moorings
in philosophy of science, not in disease prevention, symptom
science, omics, and subject-driven material like that in the
biological and behavioral sciences. The phenomenon of con-
cern to nursing is human-universe-health with emphasis on
the whole person. The concern for the whole person as the
focus of nursing theory development, research, and practice
in PhD education is not restrictive, but rather it is what makes
nursing unique. If nursing does not have unique disciplinary
knowledge that differs from the biological and behavioral
sciences, then why should universities grant PhD degrees in
nursing at all?
Sciencing is an evolutionary emergent and new ideas,
such as the inclusion of omics in disciplinary programs like
nursing, are to be welcomed, but omics is not nursing sci-
ence and should not be referred to as such. It is ancillary to
1
Loyola University Chicago, Pittsburgh, PA
Editor:
Rosemarie Rizzo Parse, RN, PhD, FAAN, Distinguished Professor
Emeritus, Loyola University Chicago, 320 Fort Duquesne Blvd. #25H,
Pittsburgh, PA 15222.
Email: rrparse@aol.com
102 Nursing Science Quarterly 29(2)

the disciplinary knowledge of nursing, which encompasses
the extant nursing frameworks and theories.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the authorship and/or publication of this review.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the authorship and/or
publication of this review.
References
Barrett, E. A. M. (2002). What is nursing science? Nursing Science
Quarterly, 15, 51-60.
Cody, W. K., & Mitchell, G. J. (2002). Nursing knowledge and
human science revisited: Practical and political considerations.
Nursing Science Quarterly, 4, 4-13.
Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science: PhD Education
(Special Issue). (2015). Nursing Outlook, 63(4), 390-445.
Eriksson, K. (2002). Caring science in a new key. Nursing Science
Quarterly, 4, 61-65.
King, I. M. & Fawcett, J. (Eds.), (1997). The language of nurs-
ing theory and metatheory. Indianapolis, IN: Center Nursing
Press.
Parse, R. R. (1987). Nursing science: Major paradigms, theories,
and critiques. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.
Parse, R. R., Barrett, E. A.M., Bourgeois, M., Dee, V., Egan, E.,
Germain, C., et al. (2000). Nursing theory-guided practice: A
definition. Nursing Science Quarterly, 13, 177.
Parse, R. R. (2015a). Nursing: A basic or applied science. Nursing
Science Quarterly, 28, 181-182.
Parse, R. R. (2015b). Nursing science or is it the science of nursing?
Nursing Science Quarterly, 28, 101-102.
Peplau, H. E. (1988). The art and science of nursing: Similarities,
differences, and relations. Nursing Science Quarterly, 1,
7-15.
Rogers, M. E. (1992) Nursing science and the space age. Nursing
Science Quarterly 5, 26-34.
Smith, M.C., & Parker, M. E. (2015). Nursing theories and nurs-
ing practice (4th Ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F. A. Davis Company.

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