Reconceptualizing Advocacy: A Novel Model for Nursing Theory and Practice

Abstract

Across nursing literature and guiding documents, nurses are persistently encouraged to engage in advocacy. Many examples exist, however, of the marked lack of consistency and criticality in how the term advocacy has been conceptualized and operationalized within nursing. In this paper, we first examine the dominant constructions of advocacy in the nursing literature, in service of exploring the benefits and unintended consequences of these constructions. Second, we offer a novel conceptualization of advocacy for the nursing profession, grounded in a philosophically rooted and practice-oriented approach which can be adopted across health care environments from the bedside to policy tables. Overall, greater clarity and consistency among nurses as it relates to advocacy is important for ensuring that we, as a profession, contribute to and draw upon a coherent foundational body of knowledge in nurse-led advocacy efforts.