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Consciousness: how does it relate to health?
Summary
This study clarifies consciousness in human health, offering nurses diverse perspectives to enhance practice, education, and research. It defines consciousness as a pervasive field of existence, with nursing diagnoses providing empirical referents for study.
Area of Science:
- Nursing
- Philosophy of Mind
- Human Health
Background:
- Consciousness is a complex concept with varied interpretations across disciplines.
- Existing literature in nursing, medicine, psychology, and philosophy offers a foundation for understanding consciousness.
- Nurses require a clearer conceptualization of consciousness to inform their professional roles.
Purpose of the Study:
- To clarify the concept of consciousness in relation to human health.
- To encourage nurses to explore diverse perspectives on consciousness.
- To identify how consciousness influences nursing practice, education, and research.
Main Methods:
- A comprehensive review of American nursing, medical, psychological, and philosophical literature.
- Conceptual analysis to develop a working definition of consciousness.
- Examination of North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) human response patterns as empirical referents.
Main Results:
- A broad foundation of interconnected theories on consciousness was identified.
- A working definition of consciousness as the fundamental, pervasive implicit field of all existence was proposed.
- NANDA human response patterns were identified as useful empirical referents for studying consciousness.
Conclusions:
- Clarifying consciousness is essential for advancing nursing practice, education, and research.
- The proposed definition and identified referents offer a starting point for empirical exploration.
- Further investigation into these referents may yield significant insights into core nursing domains.