Designer's Corner - The Missing Link

Abstract

Nursing is unique among the health-care professions in its view of the patient as a biopsychosocial being. Other health-care disciplines bring a perspective that focuses on one aspect of this triad. For example, medicine as a discipline is based on a biological model of man, psychology is based on theories of cognition and emotion, and medical sociology focuses on the social roles and relationships created by disease and illness. Nursing theoretical models blend a variety of perspectives to reflect the biological, psychological, and social dimensions of the individual. One of nurses' unique contributions to the care of patients and families is the ability to blend these multiple perspectives, both in clinical care and in research. In clinical care, this blending of different dimensions is seen every day. For example, nurses caring for critically ill patients carefully titrate vasoactive medications delivered intravenously to minimize systemic vascular resistance and maximize cardiovascular function, while they simultaneously titrate the information and social support they give to patients and families to minimize anxiety and maximize problem focused coping skills. Cardiac function increases while anxiety decreases. Both are critical to a patient's survival.