Watson theory

JEAN WATSON THEORY OF HUMAN
CARING
Presentation By
M.SENTHIL KUMAR
M.Sc., I Yr (N)
CCN

THEORIES
DEFINITION:
Theories are invented to assist in
describing, explaining, predicting and
understanding phenomena of concern. In
relation to research theory helps us to
interpret scientific findings. In a meaningful
and general sable way [ Moody 1990].

IMPORTANCE OF NURSING
THEORIES
 Assist the nursing discipline in clarifying
beliefs, values, and goals.
 Help to define the unique contribution of
nursing in the care of clients.
 Standards of clinical practice are
developed out of nursing theories

IMPORTANCE OF NURSING THEORIES
 Assist the nursing discipline in clarifying
beliefs, values, and goals.
 Help to define the unique contribution of
nursing in the care of clients.
 Standards of clinical practice are
developed out of nursing theories

INTRODUCTION
 Born: West Virginia
 Educated:
 BSN, University of Colorado, 1964,
 MS, University of Colorado, 1966, [psychiatric-mental health
nursing]
 PhD, University of Colorado, 1973 [educational psychology
and counseling]
 Dr. Jean Watson is Distinguished Professor of
Nursing and holds an endowed Chair in Caring
Science at the University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center.

 She served as Dean of Nursing at the University
Health Sciences Center and is a Past President of
the National League for Nursing
 She is a widely published author and
recipient of several awards and honors,
including an international Kellogg
Fellowship in Australia, a Fulbright
Research Award in Sweden and six (6)
Honorary Doctoral Degrees, including 3
International Honorary Doctorates (Sweden,
United Kingdom, Quebec, Canada).

 The foundation of Jean Watson’s theory of nursing
was published in 1979 in nursing: “The philosophy
and science of caring”
 In 1988, her theory was published in “nursing:
human science and human care”.

“Caring is a global
ontology of
relation”
•Way of being
•Commitment
•Intentionality
•Consciousness

THE SEVEN ASSUMPTIONS
 Watson proposes even assumptions about the
science of caring. The basic assumptions are:
 Caring can be effectively demonstrated and
practiced only interpersonally.
 Caring consists of carative factors that result in the
satisfaction of certain human needs.
 Effective caring promotes health and individual or
family growth.

THE SEVEN ASSUMPTIONS
CONTD.,
 Caring responses accept person not only as he or
she is now but as what he or she may become.
 A caring environment is one that offers the
development of potential while allowing the person
to choose the best action for himself or herself at a
given point in time.
 Caring is more “ healthogenic” than is curing. A
science of caring is complementary to the science
of curing.
 The practice of caring is central to nursing.

THE TEN PRIMARY
CARATIVE FACTORS

1. The formation of a humanistic-
altruistic system of values
 Begins developmentally at an early age with values
shared with the parents.
 Mediated through ones own life experiences, the
learning one gains and exposure to the humanities.
 Is perceived as necessary to the nurse’s own
maturation which then promotes altruistic
behavior towards others.

2. Faith-hope
 Is essential to both the carative and the curative
processes.
 When modern science has nothing further to offer
the person, the nurse can continue to use faith-
hope to provide a sense of well-being through
beliefs which are meaningful to the individual.

3. Cultivation of sensitivity to one’s
self and to others
 Explores the need of the nurse to begin to feel an
emotion as it presents itself.
 Development of one’s own feeling is needed to
interact genuinely and sensitively with others.
 Striving to become sensitive, makes the nurse
more authentic, which encourages self-growth and
self-actualization, in both the nurse and those with
whom the nurse interacts.
 The nurses promote health and higher level
functioning only when they form person to person
relationship.

4. Establishing a helping-trust
relationship
 Strongest tool is the mode of communication,
which establishes rapport and caring.
 She has defined the characteristics needed to in the
helping-trust relationship. These are:
 Congruence
 Empathy
 Warmth
 Communication includes verbal, nonverbal and
listening in a manner which connotes empathetic
understanding.

5. The expression of feelings, both
positive and negative
 According to Watson, “feelings alter
thoughts and behavior, and they need to be
considered and allowed for in a caring
relationship”.
 According to her such expression improves
one’s level of awareness.
 Awareness of the feelings helps to
understand the behavior it engenders.

6. The systematic use of the scientific
problem-solving method for decision
making
 According to Watson, the scientific problem-
solving method is the only method that
allows for control and prediction, and that
permits self-correction.
 She also values the relative nature of nursing
and supports the need to examine and
develop the other methods of knowing to
provide an holistic perspective.
 The science of caring should not be always
neutral and objective.

7. Promotion of interpersonal
teaching-learning
 The caring nurse must focus on the learning
process as much as the teaching process.
 Understanding the person’s perception of
the situation assist the nurse to prepare a
cognitive plan.

8. Provision for a supportive, protective
and /or corrective mental, physical,
socio-cultural and spiritual environment
 Watson divides these into eternal and
internal variables, which the nurse
manipulates in order to provide support and
protection for the person’s mental and
physical well-being.
 The external and internal environments are
interdependent.
 Watson suggests that the nurse also must
provide comfort, privacy and safety as a part
of this carative factor.

9. Assistance with the gratification of
human needs
 It is grounded in a hierarchy of need similar
to that of the Maslow’s.
 She has created a hierarchy which she
believes is relevant to the science of caring
in nursing.
 According to her each need is equally
important for quality nursing care and the
promotion of optimal health. All the needs
deserve to be attended to and valued.

10. Allowance for existential-
phenomenological forces
 Phenomenology is a way of understanding people
from the way things appear to them, from their
frame of reference.
 Existential psychology is the study of human
existence using phenomenological analysis.
 This factor helps the nurse to reconcile and
mediate the incongruity of viewing the person
holistically while at the same time attending to the
hierarchical ordering of needs.
 Thus the nurse assists the person to find the
strength or courage to confront life or death.

WATSON’S THEORY AND THE
FOUR MAJOR CONCEPTS
 1. Human being
 She adopts a view of the human being as: “….. a
valued person in and of him or herself to be cared
for, respected, nurtured, understood and assisted;
in general a philosophical view of a person as a
fully functional integrated self. He, human is
viewed as greater than and different from, the sum
of his or her parts”.


2.Health
 Watson believes that there are other factors that are
needed to be included in the WHO definition of
health. She adds the following three elements:
 A high level of overall physical, mental and social
functioning
 A general adaptive-maintenance level of daily
functioning
 The absence of illness (or the presence of efforts
that leads its absence)

3.Environment/society
 According to Watson caring (and nursing)
has existed in every society. A caring
attitude is not transmitted from generation
to generation. It is transmitted by the culture
of the profession as a unique way of coping
with its environment.

4. Nursing
 According to Watson “ nursing is concerned with
promoting health, preventing illness, caring for the
sick and restoring health”.
 It focuses on health promotion and treatment of
disease. She believes that holistic health care is
central to the practice of caring in nursing.
 She defines nursing as…..
“A human science of persons and human health-
illness experiences that are mediated by
professional, personal, scientific, esthetic and
ethical human transactions”.

WATSON’S THEORY AND
NURSING PROCESS
 Watson points out that nursing process contains
the same steps as the scientific research process.
They both try to solve a problem. Both provide a
framework for decision making. Watson elaborates
the two processes as:

1.Assessment
 Involves observation, identification and
review of the problem; use of applicable
knowledge in literature.
 Also includes conceptual knowledge for the
formulation and conceptualization of
framework.
 Includes the formulation of hypothesis;
defining variables that will be examined in
solving the problem.

2.Plan
 It helps to determine how variables would
be examined or measured; includes a
conceptual approach or design for problem
solving. It determines what data would be
collected and how on whom.

3.Intervention
 It is the direct action and implementation of
the plan.
 It includes the collection of the data.

4.Evaluation
 Analysis of the data as well as the
examination of the effects of interventions
based on the data. Includes the
interpretation of the results, the degree to
which positive outcome has occurred and
whether the result can be generalized.
 It may also generate additional hypothesis
or may even lead to the generation of a
nursing theory.

WATSON’S WORK AND THE
CHARACTERISTIC OF A THEORY
 Theories must be logical in nature
 Theories should be relatively simple yet generalizable
 Theories can be the basis for hypotheses that can be tested
 Theories can be utilized by practitioners to guide and
improve their practice

STRENGTHS
 Besides assisting in providing the quality of care
that client ought to receive, it also provides the
soul satisfying care for which many nurses enter
the profession.
 The client is placed in the context of the family,
the community and the culture.
 It places the client as the focus of practice rather
than the technology

LIMITATIONS
 Given the acuity of illness that leads to
hospitalization, the short length stay , and the
increasing complex technology, such quality of
care may be deemed impossible to give in the
hospital.
 While Watson acknowledges the need for
biophysical base to nursing, this area receives little
attention in her writings.

LIMITATIONS CONTD.,
 The ten caratiive factors primarily delineate
the psychosocial needs of the person.
 While the carative factors have a sound
foundation based on other disciplines, they
need further research in nursing to
demonstrate their application to practice

Watson theory

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