Health and illness: a co-existence hypothesis

It has been established that health is an important concept which helps define nursing and helps guide nursing practice. The co-existence hypothesis of health and illness has been introduced as a new way to think about health and illness. This idea states that health and illness are two separate phenomena which co-exist. Further, the concerns categorized under health have been listed. These concerns were taken from the proceedings of the first three national conferences related to nursing diagnosis. It has been suggested that nurses diagnose and treat the concerns of health, regardless of whether or not an illness is present. Development and environment are two additional concepts which have been presented, both of which serve to enrich the provision of health care by nurses. An article in a future issue will describe the levels of intervention for health and for illness to show application of the co-existence hypothesis of health and illness.