Analysis Of Swanson's Caring Theory

Beatty (2004) explains that caring is the central focus of nursing and involves taking care of clients experiencing health issues while eliminating discomfort until the client is able to independently care for him or herself. She also describes teaching and guiding others as a crucial part of caring. Beatty derived this explanation of caring from Swanson’s definition, which says that caring is a nurturing way of one person relating to another whom they feel responsible for. She also recognized the effectiveness of the caring processes of Swanson’s Caring Theory and applied it to her own practice while working with a high-risk family. Swanson developed her theory while studying three different perinatal groups, and within it, she explains …show more content…
216 registered nurses and 228 patients were recruited by a large medical center, and their perceptions of caring were measured by the CBI-Elderly, based on Watson’s theory of human caring. The CBI-Elderly measures caring behaviors including attending to individual needs, showing respect, practicing knowledgeably, respecting independence, and supporting spiritual needs. Each patient and nurse was asked to rate caring terms according to whether they felt the actions occurred rarely, sometimes, or often. This information included how often a patient felt the nurse carefully listened to them, appreciated their life story, and responded to calls on time, and nurses were asked how often they felt they completed these actions. The study was completed on medical-surgical, rehabilitation, cardiac, and oncology units, each with a different sample size. Data found that in this hospital, nursing rated their overall caring behaviors higher than their patients. It also indicated that there were areas that patient and nurse perceptions were similar, and that different units had different results. For example, on the oncology unit, nurses’ technical skills were rated lower by patients than nurses. This was possibly due to the complexity of the hospital care needed, which may influence nurses to take a task-oriented approach rather than a holistic care approach. A possible explanation for why ratings varied between units is the different needs of the patient in each one. Patients may also feel that while they value kindness and compassion, competency in performing skills and technical skills are more important, while nurses emphasize the affective or emotional aspects, which could explain the differences ratings between nurses and their patients. For example, patients who are in pain may be focused on having their immediate needs met rather than forming a relationship, while those in