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ABSTRACT
This article demonstrates an application of the theory derivation strategy to concepts thought to contribute to the development of the caring perspective within professional nurse role development. A theoretical structure and relational statements are developed to describe and explain the phenomenon and to lay the groundwork for hypothesis testing.
Introduction
As nursing develops as a practice discipline, the need for theoretical structures which allow understanding of phenomena encountered in practice and which permit linkages between concepts becomes increasingly evident. Two concepts of interest to nursing practice are caring and professional role development. Tb date, there is no literature which explains or describes the process of the development of the caring perspective in nurse professional role-taking and the impact of the bureaucratic setting on its development.
Leininger (1981; 1984) believes that caring is the essence of nursing and has devoted much effort to exploring and explaining the concept. Heidegger (1962) holds that caring constitutes authentic being for individuals through intersubjective relationships. Paterson and Zderad (1976) and Watson (1979) see humanistic intersubjective interactions between nurses and patients as focal to nursing. Kramer (1974) describes and explains role difficulties experienced by new nurses caused by the lack of congruence between ideal role expectations and the expectations of the institutions where they practice. Murphy (1978) points out the difficulties created by bureaucratic structures which prevent nurses from acting in the most morally desirable ways.
To facilitate understanding of the phenomenon of development of the caring perspective within the professional nurse role, the strategy of theory derivation was selected to structure points of view in a process of developing the caring perspective within the professional nurse role.
Theory Derivation Strategy
Walker and Avant (1983) describe theory derivation as a method which utilizes analogy from one field of interest to another field of interest for the purpose of obtaining explanations or predictions in another field. An entire structure and/or entire sets of interrelated statements are transposed from one field to another with the redefinition of concepts and statements which make it meaningful to the new field. The strategy was deemed appropriate because several concepts and relationships of concepts could be seen as analogous to an already existing theory.
In the present case, ideas and concepts already culled from the...