Client-environment Interaction: Context for Nursing Care

Authors

  • Jo Ann Neff
  • Sharon Summers

Abstract

Person, environment, and health have been described as the essential constructs of the discipline of nursing - constructs that should guide both the phenomena selected for investigation as well as the diagnostic and therapeutic modalities employed in practice. A central feature of the role of the nurse is the management of the person-environment interface to improve and maintain the health of clients. Success in facilitating adaptive responses in health and illness depends upon understanding important contextual and dispositional factors that may influence human response. The notion that human response is a function of both the person and the environment is not a new one. It dates back historically to the writings of Kantor (1924) and Lewin (1935) in the early twentieth century. These scientists established the foundation for further person-environment theories by Angyal (1941), Murray (1938), Murphy (1947), and Sullivan (1953). Of these early theorists, Kurt Lewin's work has had the most significant impact. His construct of the field or life space consisted of a sphere of existing facts surrounding the individual that could be divided into two classes: those facts that describe the person and those describing the environment. It was the relationship of all these facts that was thought to determine a person's response at any given time.

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Published

1992-04-13

Issue

Section

Articles