Aesthetic Attitude Based on Kant's Aesthetics of Caring Relationships in Nursing

(1) Background: Although aesthetic attitude has been comprehended as one of the fundamental traits in nursing, there is a lack of discussion considering Kant's aesthetics of caring relationships. The purpose of this study was to illuminate aesthetic and moral characteristics of caring expressed in the caring relationship between a nurse and patient and suggest a new perspective of aesthetic attitude based on Kant's aesthetics of care ethics. (2) Methods: A theoretical reflection was contemplated regarding notions of aesthetic attitude in the caring relationship between a nurse and patient. (3) Results: human faculty of reflective aesthetic judgment to feel the beautiful and the sublime through imagination and free play in Kant's aesthetics could be applied to the aesthetic attitude in the field of nursing. (4) Conclusions: A nurse who has trained with this aesthetic attitude can act as a moral agent and contribute to the protection and promotion of human dignity in a caring relationship.

Intersections of the arts and nursing knowledge

The arts and nursing are profoundly connected. While the relationship between nursing and art has persisted over time, the majority of nursing scholarship on the arts has historically centered upon the art of nursing practice and the cultivation and application of aesthetic knowing. However, there is a burgeoning use of arts-based strategies is nursing education, research, and practice. Correspondingly, there is a need to understand how such approaches can uniquely contribute knowledge to the nursing discipline in order to support arts-integration for nursing scholars. We structure our inquiry into arts' contributions according to two dominant methods of engaging with arts-based strategies: knowing about (e.g., phenomena) vis-à-vis art-viewing, and knowing through (e.g., embodied knowing) vis-à-vis art-making. In doing so, we explore critical contributions of art to nursing research and educational practices, including arts' capacity to augment traditional research and communication approaches, democratize the research space, challenge issues of representation, and facilitate education, dissemination, and reflexivity.

Nursing Care Aesthetic in Iran: A Phenomenological Study

Background:

Despite the emphasis of contemporary nursing theories on the belief that nursing is a science and an art in care, published studies show that only the nursing science has developed. Many experts believe that by recognizing and perceiving this concept, the clinical field can develop aesthetic knowledge in nursing and education of students.

Objectives:

The purpose of this study was to explain clients and nurses perspective of nursing care aesthetics.

Patients and Methods:

Using an interpretive phenomenology, 12 clients and 14 nurses were interviewed. Participants in this study were purposefully selected and their experiences were analyzed using Van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenological framework.

Results:

Emerged themes were as follows: subjective description, overt spirituality, opening desperate impasse, sense of unity, continue to shine, and painful pass and pleasing. According the participants experiences, nursing care aesthetics includes subjective description of spiritual and desirable caring behaviors combined with sense of unity and sympathy between the nurse and the patients, which leads to opening in desperate impasse with creating the feeling of satisfaction and peace in the patient. It is a shining of clinical capabilities and an action beyond what should be combined with a decorating care that leads to a pleasant ending against the pain and suffering of the others for the nurse.

Conclusions:

Many caring behaviors associate with aesthetic experience for both patients and nurses and despite two different views, findings of this study showed that these experiences were similar in most cases. The aesthetics of nursing care was defined as what reflects the holistic nature of nursing with an emphasis on spirituality and skill. Results of this study are effective in identification of the values existed in nurse caring behaviors and developing of profession by instruction, implementation, and evaluation them.

Moral distress in nursing personnel

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the frequency and intensity of moral distress experienced by nursing personnel in southern Brazil, covering elements of their professional practice. METHOD: a survey was undertaken in two hospitals in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, with 247 nurses. Data was collected by means of the adapted Moral Distress Scale. RESULTS: the perception of situations that lead to moral distress is enhanced in nurses and in nursing staff working in institutions with greater openness to dialogue, which hold team meetings, with fewer working hours and a greater ratio of professionals to patients. CONCLUSION: understanding moral distress allows us to go beyond solving the problems of the workers themselves, enabling the development of an ethics of active individuals and wide opportunities, defined mainly by the relationship with oneself.

As expressões da arte em enfermagem no ensino e no cuidado em saúde: estudo bibliométrico

Estudo bibliométrico de artigos científicos cujo objetivo foi traçar um perfil de publicações sobre expressões da arte em enfermagem no ensino e no cuidado. As bases de dados consultadas foram: SciELO e Medline, com os seguintes descritores "art", "nursing", "teaching", "care". A busca resultou 271 publicações, mediante critérios de inclusão e exclusão. Foram analisados 45 artigos publicados nos anos de 2004 a 2008. O país com maior número de publicações foi os Estados Unidos. Os periódicos brasileiros de maior frequência foram a Revista Texto & Contexto Enfermagem e a Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem. O método predominante foi o qualitativo. Quanto à expressão da arte nos títulos dos estudos analisados, 55,5% das publicações referiram-se à arte e cuidado, 26,6% à arte e ensino e 4,4% com ambos os termos. Conclui-se que a arte não aparece nos estudos investigados, enquanto objeto da ciência, mas como ferramenta para o desenvolvimento do cuidado e ensino de enfermagem.

Human nature: a foundation for palliative care

The Aristotelian-Thomist philosopher holds that human intellectual knowledge is possible because of the order in the world and natural human capacities. It is the position of this paper that there is a shared human form or nature that unites all humanity as members of the same kind. Moral treatment is due to every human being because they are human, and is not based upon expression of abilities. Humans have substantial dynamic existence in the world, an existence which overflows in expressive relationships. As both patient and health professional are human, human nature forms the natural foundation of health care. This paper looks towards human nature for moral guidance. The therapeutic relationship is seen as a part of the interpersonal moral space formed by human relationality, which tends towards community - in this case, the healthcare system. The therapeutic relationship is also a source of moral responsibility, as illness makes the patient vulnerable, while knowledge and nursing capacities generate in the nurse a duty to care. Nursing theory serves to connect philosophical reflection and nursing practice. Imogene King's conceptual system and theory of Goal Attainment is the theory that follows from the perspective of human person being presented. This synthesis of philosophy and theory is developed with the goal of shedding light on healthcare decisions in palliative care. The article concludes with the acknowledgement that the complexity of contextualized individual decisions requires the insight and discipline of the moral practitioner, and provides some thoughts on how education, development, and refinement transform an individual into a nurse.