Levine 1967 Nursing Forum
Levine 1967 Nursing Forum
Conservation Principles
of Nursing
by Myra E. Levine, R.N., M.S.N.
NURSING FORUM
4S
The four principles discussed in this paper are all "conservation" principles. Conservation means "keeping together"
(L. conservatiov, but it should not imply minimal activity.
In nursing, to keep together means to maintain a proper
balance between active nursing intervention coupled with
patient participation on the one hand and the safe limits of
the patient's ability on the other. Such a balance is struck
only when the patient's present needs, as assessed by the
nurse, arc measured against the many variables that individualize his predicament of illness. Then, since conservation
takes place within a space-time continuum, in planning nursing care the nurse must allow for progress and change and
project into the future the patient's response to treatment.
The four conservation principles have as a postulate the
unity and integrity of the individual. All nursing care is
focused on man and the complexity of his relationships with
'lis environment, both internal and external, and common
experience emphasizes that every response to every environmental stimulus results from the integrated and unified
nature of the human organism. In other words, every response
is an organismic one - no other kind is possible - and
every adaptive change is accomplished by the entire individual.
Adaptations vary considerably, however, in their quality.
Every person possesses a unique adaptive capability, built
on the extremely personal parameters which summarize his
life experience. The integrated response of the individual to
any stimulus results in a realignment of his very substance,
and in a sense this creates a message which others may
learn to understand. 1 Each message, in turn, is the result of
observation, selection of relevant data, and assessment of the
priorities demanded by such knowledge.
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