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Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory
Florence Nightingale developed the environmental theory which focuses on the patient’s external factors and the environment which influence diseases and subsequently death. The Crimean war she actively participated impacted her experiences, and she comprehended the importance of unhygienic environment and its impact on mortality. By a scrutiny of how the environment affects a patient’s health, Nightingale developed the environmental theory. The paper evaluates how Nightingale developed the theory through a personal approach after a careful review of the literature. By analysing concepts, elaboration of relationships, and authentication of the theory Florence Nightingale laid a foundation of nursing education that has positively influenced the quality of nursing practice.
Stage 1: Theorizing
I was determined to pursue nursing, a career I considered a calling, but my parents opposed the dream. Nevertheless, I enrolled in nursing school at the age of thirty in 1850. Studying nursing was perceived as a menial labour and went against the family’s prosperous prospects; thus I was expected to marry and uphold the family’s social status. I had a firm belief that I had a bigger purpose; I joined nursing to assist those languishing in poverty and ease illness and suffering.
I was burning with passion for nursing. Nursing is not just an art but a science too which needs specialised education. Lack of nursing knowledge can disrupt the healing process of a patient. Nurses improve the health of the sick by applying standardised practices and the healing art. My perspective is that through nature, nursing fosters health (Weaver, 2012). Regulation of the patient’s environment actualises active nursing practice. Alteration of external and internal environmental factors assists in achieving a preferred health status. One of the core responsibilities of nursing is to alter the factors which influence sickness and health to foster patient healing and outcomes. Nursing practice is unique and separate from medicine. Within the nursing field, a practitioner must acknowledge the body’s critical needs and work efficiently to ensure availability of appropriate warmth, serenity, light, and fresh air; it is at this point that nursing differs from medicine (Weaver, 2012).
After our arrival in Scutari to take health services for the Crimean War, we encountered overcrowded barracks with terrible sanitary conditions. I identified flaws in sewerage, lighting, ventilation and structural weaknesses in buildings. Being informed of the escalated death rates and the poor hygienic conditions, the nurses went straight to work to clean wards and attend to any soldiers brought in. The mortality rates tremendously dropped after improving sanitation and organising nursing services. In my time in Scutari, I finished examination and experimentation of the surrounding and the services advanced by nurses; thus leading to the formulation of standard nursing practices (Roque & Carraro, 2015). One of such experiments is the comparison of dirtiness of water when one cleans when it is cold without soap, with soap but cold, and warm with soap. The findings from this experiment proved that cold water without soap barely removed dirt, cold with soap sparingly removed some dirt and hot or warm with soap was efficient and removed a lot of dirt. Through these findings, and having comprehensive records of causes and rates of death I was able to connect how better sanitation and environmental factors influenced patient recovery. Investigating the reasons for escalated mortality rates and making detailed recommendations for transformation lead to non-reoccurrence of the situation (Roque & Carraro, 2015).
Stage 2: syntax development
By changing the environmental factors, the body meets its wants, and the adversity of disease reduces. Nursing practice is an art of making people’s health status improve from worse to better. The nurse’s role is to provide or create an adequate environment to foster a patient’s health. An individual is part of nature whose natural protection is impacted by an unhealthy surrounding. Having environmental control around the hospital and associations and influences of caregivers, the disease and the health status of the patient are promoted.
Stage 3: Testing of the theory
Taneli (2015) studied the environmental impacts on the elderly. Several factors within the environment of the aged people including the public, residence, and the society can affect human responses, especially when the old people are cognitively impaired, sick, or weak. The environment can influence the daily activities of the aged and their reaction to diseases. Besides, Taneli (2015), postulates that comprehending issues within an environment that foster or hinder care delivery, behaviour, or health can offer new insights of practical and theoretical significance. Through quantitative measure of environmental factors, Nightingale’s perspective can be validated by this analysis.
Florence Nightingale is the champion of patient advocacy. Active support for basic patient needs promotes the quality of health results. The evaluation of internal and external influences which put at risk the nursing environment and how the care givers respond to the situation as health advocates were analysed by Davoodvand, Abbaszand & Ahmadi (2016). With the fact that diseases reduce the ability of people to protect themselves, the sick need people to stand for them against these uncertainties. Nightingale showed patient advocacy through environment theory formulation.
Also, a qualitative survey conducted by Roque & Carraro (2015) verifies Nightingale’s environmental theory. The study reveals that recovery from risky post-partum is affected by psychological factors, which emanate from external environmental elements like smell, noise, heating, or lighting. The study recommends the creation of organisational culture in the hospital premises which meet the emotional and physical needs of such patients by managing environmental care factors.
In his studies, Jacob (2001) concludes that using several observers, practical tools, methods, and theories, scholars hope to remove the limitations, internal biases, and weaknesses which come from a single methodology, single-theory, and single-scholar studies. Using triangulation method, in a particular situation help to confirm the outcomes of a study through the convergence of various perspectives (Jacob, 2001).
The works of young (1966) reveal that social research is a scientific tool through logical techniques which aspire to find new or old facts and to evaluate the explanations, interrelations, and sequences, and natural laws which govern them. However, some social researchers postulate that authentication is through the gathering of cooperating findings from the same interviewees and on the same topic under study, but utilizing different techniques in social sciences.
Stage 4: Evaluation
This ecological theory touches several facets of the current nursing profession including the application of balanced diet to enhance faster wound healing, patient observation, housekeeping, personal hygiene, etc. All these efforts aim at promoting more rapid recovery. The theoretical perspectives formulated by Nightingale are still applicable in the contemporary nursing practice. Weaver (2012), says that high standards of personal hygiene at home inhibits the development of bacteria, and thus assists to stop the spread of infections. The study agrees with Nightingale’s principle of personal cleanliness that ensures the patient is dry and clean to avert disease.
` Besides, the environmental theory of Nightingale emphasises on monitoring the sick. It involves assessments and observations of the sick and correct documentation of remarks. The observational tenet is still relevant to nursing. According to Inan &Dinc (2003), ineffective documentation hinders patient care and risks the well-being of patients. Nurses can foster better health through adequate documentation; better communication, continuity of nursing services, and also meets the current professional and current legal requirements of nursing practice. The environmental theory further looks at the optimal nutrition through documentation of fluids and food ingested. Poor nutrition is a predisposing factor for ulcers, though it is reversible. Thus it is prudent that health practitioners can recognise the vulnerable cases and handle them appropriately. Through keen observation and evaluation, nursing experts can institute optimal nutrition thus reducing patients’ danger pressure ulcers through the application of interventions that will alleviate malnutrition.
Nightingale’s approaches concerns with restoring the spirit, mind, and body to equilibrium. Staying in a healing place is a critical facet of nursing. There are unintentional effects in any neighbourhood like several interruptions, noise, and too much lighting because of unavoidable nature of providing all day care. The scholarly works of Halm (2016), reveals that unnecessary noise has severe psychological and physiological consequences and can negatively affect patients’ healing process.
Conclusion
The impact of Florence Nightingale’s environmental approach provides a footing for the contemporary nursing expertise. Famous for establishing health care on research, Nightingale is the pioneer of research-based nursing. The advancement and utilisation of the environmental theory is significance in the provision of optimal patient recovery outcomes through transformation and improvement of the patient’s environment. The features of Nightingale’s theory remain influential even after 150 years after its formulation.
