Philosophical and theoretical foundation

“Many of the terms that nurses use are ambiguous or difficult to interpret. The terms must be examined from a theoretical context to clarify their meaning ”.

                                                                                                                                            Prof. J. Paley

How not to clarify concepts in nursing.

J Adv Nurs , 1996 24: 572-8. 

Note:

The philosophical and theoretical foundation of ATIC has been made explicit on multiple occasions over the years. For the purposes of theoretical categorization, the interpretive conceptualization carried out and made explicit by the author of ATIC in various scientific publications on the meta-paradigmatic constructs of the nursing discipline – person, health, environment and nursing – as well as the nursing care process and its components , can be considered a mid-range theory.

 

In order to facilitate the understanding of the philosophical and theoretical bases on which ATIC is based, a brief summary scheme is presented below, with contents that synthesize the main influences of each philosophy, school of thought, model or nursing or nursing theory. other basic and social sciences in the development of ATIC terminological, ontological and analysis tools.

 

This section is NOT intended to be an explanatory text of nursing philosophies, models and theories. The explicitness of a model or theory is only indicative of its influence on the development of ATIC. Consult the reference works for more information on each paradigm, model or theory.

Philosophical current that suggests that scientific knowledge is fallible by nature, assumes uncertainty and the probability of error and emphasizes the need for a critical and permanent review of scientific assumptions.

Referents : Karl Popper, Thomas Khun .

Influence on ATIC:

The prac nurse ca should be safe and evidence – based, although both practical and evidence the possibility of error contemplated random and systematic error default .

Scientific postulates are not permanent or unquestionable. The language systems either. The evidence implies the application of the results of the highest quality research studies, as well as the common sense of the professionals and the preferences of the people served.

Philosophy oriented to the resolution of practical problems , based on the understanding of reality from an empirical point of view . The meaning of the ideas is conditioned by the criteria of practical utility and their value lies in the practical consequences of their use, acceptance and results.

Referents :

Charles Pierce, William James.

Influence on ATIC:

E l starting point must be the experience and not language.

Language is a tool, not an end.

Practice will always be ahead of the ability of any language system to represent it.

Current multidisci p linar approximation epistemological and philosophical views that speak knowledge is an active process of construction and development, not only reception. Phenomenology focuses on the understanding of meanings and human experiences, highlighting the importance of history and individual and social context, knowledge and preconceptions and their role in judgments or decision-making processes.

Referents :

John Dewey, Jean Piagget , Martin Heiddeger , Hans-Georg Gadamer.

Influence on ATIC:

              Knowledge is dynamic and requires self-reflection and shared reflection.

              Receiving information alone does not generate knowledge.

              The individual or collective experience and the context are decisive in decision-making.

              The meanings are conditioned by human experience.

              Prejudices and values modify meanings and decision-making.

From the Greek term “Holo” (full or complete), this humanist philosophy raises as a fundamental idea that “The whole is more than the sum of its parts” and that when observing a totality, realities and effects other than those produced by partiality are evidenced .

Referrer:

Jan Christian Smuts

Influence on ATIC:

The person is an integrality. Its parts include the physical being, the conscious being, the autonomous being, their interactions and the interrelation with the environment.

At each level of care and at each level of the health system, the information needs are different, so that no language system currently covers the entire range of needs.

Study framework of complex systems and the interaction between their parts. The more complex a system is, the greater its vulnerability and its ability to become unstable. Complex systems have the capacity to self-organize and make changes to adapt and increase their survival and effectiveness. They are characterized by the absence of linearity and a dynamic of chaos; one event can affect any other, exponentially maximizing the unpredictability of the results.

Referents:

Influence on ATIC:              

People and their environments are complex systems unto themselves.

              Healthcare settings are complex systems. 

The complexity of care is the sum of the individual complexity, the risk of death, the therapeutic complexity, the procedural complexity and the complexity of the organizational context for the provision of care. The expertise or experience of each professional can act as an aggravating or mitigating factor of the complexity of care.

Complexity and intensity of care are border concepts but not synonymous.

The caregiving process is not linear, it is circular and iterative.

The greater the complexity, the greater the risk of instability, the greater the number of potentially intervening variables, the effect modifying variables, and the confounding variables, as well as the lower probability that the prediction of results is correct.

Problems not detected or addressed in time exponentially increase the risk of much more serious events and complications (butterfly effect).

Prevention is key at all levels of care, not only in primary care.

The equivalent of nursing care workload is the multiplication, not the sum, of the complexity squared (E = mc 2 ) [Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity].

Framework proposed as a grouping approach to the study phenomena of classical physics and quantum mechanics under a common scheme.

Referrer :

Stephen Hawking

Influence on ATIC:

Everything is related. The sciences are nourished by the knowledge generated by each one of them and by the knowledge generated by the others.

Clinically, the greater the ability to integrate knowledge, the easier it will be to refine the judgment. The conceptual models of the different schools of nursing thought can coexist harmoniously. There is no single way to interpret and understand the phenomena of disciplinary interest. Each theoretical contribution has its value. There is no conceptual model that has been better evidenced than another.

Schematizing a valuation data model according to the postulates of a model is not equivalent to incorporating a model into practice. Conceptual models are not implemented in practice, they are made operational through projects to improve the provision of care, its organizational context and the transmission of its values so that they permeate the entire professional practice .

Mathematical theory that describes a set of elements, parts or fragments that present self-similarity in a wide range of scale s , even as a whole, as if they were small copies of the same figure or geometric shape . Nature presents multiple elements of fractal structure.

Referrer:

Benoit Mandelbrodt

Influence on ATIC:

Data models can be viewed as fractals .

The self-similarity applies to the behavior and evolution of multiple processes of health , so their identification and approach to population or group level may be similar to the individual level and vice-versa. This contributes to the reasoning for the use of individually adjustable population care standards.

In turn, this conception has an impact on the terminology construction and also in order to avoid duplication, optimize the use and reuse the data in the information systems. The property of self-similarity guides the prioritization of data in each clinical and / or care situation of the person.

Philosophy and social movement that defends gender equality, the recognition of women’s rights throughout the world. The ethics of care is based on equality with an emphasis on respect for diversity and the satisfaction of one’s own needs and those of others.

Referents:

Simone de Beauvoir , Carol Gilligan

Influence on ATIC:

The nursing profession and its practical exercise is autonomous by definition and by law.

Nursing practice and its scope of competence is not homogeneous in the world and evolves linked to the progress of the recognition of women’s rights in each country or region.

There is no autonomous role and no collaborative role. The assumption of responsibility is inherent in professional practice. Co-responsibility is frequent in the practical exercise of health disciplines due to the high complexity of the situations that must be prevented, treated or alleviated.

The situations and health problems of people can have a level of complexity so high that they require the judgment and intervention of multiple professionals, who from the autonomous exercise contribute in a symmetrical way knowledge and expertise for the prevention, resolution or palliation of the situation .

Co-responsibility can also be established with the beneficiary of care, within the framework of the exercise of their autonomy and the right to make their own decisions.

The delegation of competences (areas of responsibility) between professions is a competence dislocation . Delegation of tasks can be done from the professional level to the technical level. Nurses are professionals who can delegate tasks, not responsibilities, to auxiliary or technical personnel. A professional cannot delegate a competence to another professional of the same level, they can request collaboration or opinion.

Some of the competencies (areas of responsibility) in the health professions intersect , indicating shared areas of responsibility that must be assumed in symmetry and harmony.

The concept of “medical order” is out of place. The autonomy of the person receiving care must be respected by law . The doctor can propose or recommend the patient and can request services or care benefits from the nurse, when the patient cannot, does not know or is not capable of understanding or performing it himself.

Reference framework on the process and results of human decision-making and its translation to information systems, robotics and artificial intelligence, which offers three main premises :

1. Expertise is acquired through reflective practice.      

2. There are 5 levels of expertise: apprentice, beginner, competent, proficient and expert.      

3. It is illogical to believe that everyone will become an expert. The experience has a normal curved distribution (Gaussian bell).      

Referents :

Hubert Dreyfus , Stuart Dre and Fus, Patricia Benner.

Influences on ATIC:

The language should allow the representation of knowledge at each of the different levels of expertise .

The proficient or expert nurse has greater clinical expertise, greater analytical capacity and clinical reasoning. Consequently, it is better able to refine the precise identification of the status of the person receiving care and the forecast of its evolution, as well as to more precisely identify the interaction of history (antecedents), context and its influence in the situation.

In practice, the different levels of expertise coexist in a relatively stable way.

The greater the expertise, the less influence of the organizational context on clinical decision making . The truly expert professional is better able to adapt, adjust or ignore a standard, protocol or procedure to give a more adequate clinical response to the need or situation.

A set of epistemological approaches , with developments from different disciplines, whose common basis is the promotion of health and prevention at all levels from individual to population, as well as the recognition of the importance of the social environment (conditioning factors and social determinants, factors cultural, economic, political, legal, historical and structural) and the natural environment in health.

Referents :

Multiple . See Richard L et al. Ecological models revisited: Their uses and evolution in health promotion over two decades. Annual Reviews of Public Health 2011 32: 307-26.

Influences on ATIC:

Nursing practice is essentially based on prevention at all population levels (individual, group, community, population), in all age groups and at all levels of care.

The study and nursing practice are based not only on the approach to real health problems and situations, but on the consideration of anticipating what may happen depending on the vulnerability and risk factors of each person (group or population) .

Population or group standards are applicable and must be adjusted to the individual situation of each person. Analysis of individual cases or case series can help establish group or population standards in the absence of better evidence.

Epistemological approach to the provision of professional care based on the influence of the environment on health and healing processes, the importance of hygiene and individual and collective care in the prevention of infections and diseases, the need to document the process of provision of care and the status and evolution of the beneficiaries, as well as statistically analyzing the data, the impact of professional care on health and mortality outcomes.

Referrer:

              Florence Nightingale

Influences on ATIC:

              The environment exerts a positive or negative influence on the course of the disease or health situation.

The prevention of diseases, complications and disabilities is one of the backbones of the nursing profession and its social contribution.

Nursing care has a healing effect in itself.

Registration is part of the provision of care. It is not an additional or secondary act.

Statistical analysis is a key tool in managing care delivery and its outcomes. 

It includes the works of the theorizers of the school of thought on needs, the school of interaction , the school of results and other orientations . Essentially they are impregnated with the conception of the human being from a holistic perspective , an integral being with biological, physical, mental, emotional, social, moral and spiritual components in constant interaction with the environment, as well as the autonomy of the individual, of health as a process of well-being, not only as the absence of disease, self-care, the importance of interactions, roles and relationships in health and nursing as an autonomous profession.

Referents:

              School of thought needs: V . Henderson . FROM Orem, FG Abdellah

              School of thought interaction: H . Peplau , IM King, I. J.Orlando , J. Travelbee

              Outcome School of Thought: C. Roy, ME Rogers, ME Levine , DE Johnson

              Otr or s teorizador e s: N. Pender, M. Leninger , P. Barker .

Influences and assumptions in ATIC:

Nursing is a multiparadigmatic scientific discipline , which uses process engineering in its practical application to the prevention and resolution of individual, group, community and population health problems and situations.

No philosophy or any of the conceptual models prevails in importance, impact or time over the others. Assumptions, beliefs, and principles about the nature of nursing coexist and evolve through mid-range theories and research. S t seem to prevail phenomena of study and practice described by Fawcett in metaparadigm discipline : person, health, environment and nursing.

Nursing is a basic (health) , social and applied science.

The process of care delivery or nursing process is the systematic method of professional care delivery.

Conceptual models and high-ranking theories determine practice at an abstract level, orienting the values that must permeate it. They have no direct practical application. Its assumptions and propositions are operationalized and demonstrated through quantitative and qualitative research to generate midrange theories and applicable results.

The prevention of diseases, complications and disabilities , self-care and health promotion are core elements .

Conceptual framework of the nursing discipline for knowledge management in information systems. The acronyms correspond to the acronym of: Data, Information , Knowledge and Wisdom (Data, Information, Knowledge and Expertise).

Referents:

              J. R. Graves , S. Corcoran , R. Nelson, Joss I .

Influences and assumptions in ATIC:

              The data are discrete entities not interpretable individually and / or textually .

              The information is generated with the interpretation of multiple data.

              Knowledge is generated by relating and comparing multiple sets of contextualized data .

Expertise is the correct and empathic application of knowledge to meet needs, prevent, solve or alleviate problems or situations.

ATIC Terminology and knowledge tools should allow data and information to be represented and contribute to generating knowledge and expertise.

The content of this section should be referenced:

Juvé-Udina , ME. Philosophical and theoretical influences and assumptions in ATIC. ( ATIC )

For more information, see the Publications section.