Running head: PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY & METAPARADIGM INTERRELATIONSHIP 1

Personal Philosophy & Metaparadigm Interrelationship

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PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY & METAPARADIGM INTERRELATIONSHIP 2

Personal Philosophy & Metaparadigm Interrelationship

Introduction
A metaparadigm is a system of vital concepts and values that define the central issues of

any discipline. Nursing metaparadigm concepts indicate its functionality as a scientific discipline

through education, research and practices that enhance the understanding of patients. Four major

subjective factors in a personal nursing philosophy determine the influence of nursing

performance on patient wellness. The central metaparadigm concepts in nursing include

client/person, environment, nursing and health. These concepts of nursing revolve around

different nursing theories and define a set of values and beliefs in the functions of nursing

practice. My philosophical approach focuses on the tenets of Jean Watson’s ‘Human Caring

Theory,’ which elucidates the complexity of interrelationships in the nursing metaparadigm.

Using theoretical applications, descriptions of this metaparadigm concepts and their

interrelationship will indicate how nurses can achieve good patient care.

Person/client paradigm

Nursing serves the main goal of improving wellbeing in the society. Person-centered care

is a key concept in nursing philosophy because it engages a nurse in not only taking care of

patient illness, but also enhancing their personal wellbeing including their spiritual, physical and

social states (Chinn & Kramer, 2018 p.121). Theoretical perspectives define nursing as a caring

model that is both person-, and environment-specific and exposes the dimensions of human

interactions with their environment especially in care settings. Empowered by intelligence, the

human existence has an impact on the emergence of various attributes associated with both the

person and environment paradigms. One major link between these two paradigms is the mutual

awareness of people and their experience (Nikfarid et al, 2018). Nurse-patient relationships
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generate transpersonal interactions between the nurse and patient leading to an experience that

serves a patient in both the human and environment dimensions.

Health paradigm

Health is a major paradigm that defines the key purpose of nursing practice. It not only

defines the state of illness, but also exists as a dynamic process occurring simultaneously in both

the environment and the person/client paradigms (Deliktas et al, 2019). At first glance, health

involves wellbeing and encompasses the physical, social, spiritual and cultural aspects of a

human being. There is a balance between the health and person paradigms due to the alignment

of the health services to such aspects (Deliktas et al, 2019). On the other hand, the health concept

also influences nursing practice dynamically through its simultaneous occurrence in both the

environment and person/individual paradigms. For instance, health influences one’s ability to

survive in different environments because it does not only involve illness or disease but also

determines the interdependent environmental circumstances (Chinn & Kramer, 2018 p.51). In

my opinion, these experiences define the link between the health and environment paradigms by

aligning the role of the environment on a person as a whole.

Environment paradigm

The environment paradigm involves a set of external and internal factors that influence

the inner power of an individual. An environment is associated with everything abstract that

affects how a person feels and it includes the physical, psychological, cultural and social factors

among others (Deliktas et al, 2019). The environment paradigm has different themes that are

associated with health and person paradigms. Qualities of the environment such as heat/warmth,

light, and cleanliness may have impacts on health or the healing effect on a patient. Additionally,

I found out that psychological and social factors are part of the environmental concept because
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they affect a person by distinguishing their experience (Chinn & Kramer, 2018 p.51). All these

factors indicate that both health and environment paradigms are key components that occur

simultaneously in the nursing care setting. Altogether, the role of the environment on health is

associated with the experience of a patient who develops relationships with a nurse during care

(Smith & Parker, 2020 p.5). In my opinion, these patients-nurse relationships generate an

interactive care setting that emphasizes the important link between the environment and a person.

Nursing paradigm

There are divisive definitions of nursing that reflect the philosophical positions of

individuals such as nurses and patients. The nursing paradigm emphasizes on the role that

nursing plays in supporting, facilitating and empowering communities while minimizing the

impacts of illness (Nikfarid et al, 2018). As part of my evolution, the humanistic approach in

nursing practice has transposed my view from a professional to a humane course that promotes

open mindedness in care settings. In other words, the nursing paradigm has evolved into a

humanistic-altruistic system that focuses on the human value of nursing practice. Using this

approach creates supportive protective and supportive care processes with a transformative

connection between a nurse and the patient/client (Smith & Parker, 2020 p.4). Various

caregiving factors such as spiritual and social support are examples of clinical processes that

form the core of both person/client and nursing paradigms of nursing care.
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Theory of Caring
Compatibility of Personal Philosophy with the Theory of Caring
The real similarities, differences and positions of the nursing metaparadigm require a

systematic reasoning approach as indicated Jean Watson’s Human Care Theory. According to

Watson’s theory, nursing practice follows the humanistic approach that views a person in three

different dimensions including the body, mind and soul (Nikfarid et al, 2018). His humanistic

point of view relates the person paradigm to the environment paradigm by explaining the

physical, social and psychological values as key environmental factors that influence the

wellbeing of a person. Major elements in the theory also reflect the care factors of nursing that

create simultaneous functionality between the health, person and environment paradigms.

Generally, he suggests that core factors of the person paradigm such as the body, and soul form

part of the healing process, in a similar way to the environment paradigm values such as love,

care and empathy (Nikfarid et al, 2018). His theory-based model of care also relates the

environment paradigm to the health and person paradigms in many ways. For instance, he

suggests that the caring-science orientation of conventional nursing practice contain the moral

idea of environmental experience such as culture, or social support that have impacts within the

health and person paradigms (Deliktas et al, 2019). His humanistic model of care is also evident

in both nursing and person paradigms. He explains this interconnectedness in nursing practice

when he associates nursing practice as a profession, to the humanistic course of caregiving.

Conclusion
Nursing metaparadigms are a system of views and perceptions that influence the

profession based on different nursing theories. The preliminary phase of this paper provides

comparisons of four different metaparadigms including the person, health, environment, and

nursing paradigms. By applying Jean Watson’s theory to this comparison, one can easily find the
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main similarities and differences among these metaparadigms. Through the conceptualization of

nursing metaparadigms, the theoretical approach applied to this personal nursing philosophy has

demonstrated how nursing practice influences the potential of a person to acquire bio-, psycho-

and socio-based values.

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References

Chinn, P.L. & Kramer, M. K. (2018). Knowledge Development in Nursing: Theory and process

(10e éd.). St. Louis, Missouri: Mosby.

Deliktas, A., Korukcu, O., Aydin, R., & Kabukcuoglu, K. (2019). Nursing students' perceptions

of nursing metaparadigms: A phenomenological study. The Journal of Nursing

Research, 27(5), e45.

Nikfarid, L., Hekmat, N., Vedad, A., & Rajabi, A. (2018). The main nursing metaparadigm

concepts in human caring theory and Persian mysticism: a comparative study. Journal of

medical ethics and history of medicine, 11.

Smith, M. & Parker, M.E. (2020). Nursing theories and nursing practice. (5th ed.) Philadelphia,

PA: FA Davis ISBN 9780803679917