The perspective of portuguese nurses on nursing metaparadigmatic concepts

Abstract

Objective: to identify the level of agreement between the concepts that nurses have about the nursing metaparadigm and the application of these ideas in professional practice. Methods: Exploratory, descriptive and quantitative study, carried out from July 2015 to March 2016 in 36 hospital institutions in Continental Portugal, with the participation of 3,451 nurses. Data were collected through the application of a questionnaire with two parts, one regarding the characterization of the participants and another about personal, health, environment and nursing conceptions according to 13 nursing theoreticians. Agreement with the mentioned metaparadigmatic concepts was evaluated through a Likert scale. Results: analysis showed that the sample was predominantly made up of women (77.1%), with an average age of 36.4 years. As for professional training, 76.3% were nurses, 19.9% specialized nurses and 3.8% nurse managers. The conceptions that obtained higher agreement were those by Virginia Henderson, Afaf Meleis, Dorothea Orem, Madeleine Leininger, and Callista Roy. Nurses qualified the conceptions of Virginia Henderson and Afaf Meleis as “totally in line with their practice” regarding the four metaparadigmatic concepts. Conclusion: the congruence verified between the concepts established by theoretical models and the practice of nurses is an opportunity to evolve a logic marked by the assumption of “doing for clients what they cannot do by themselves”, as advocated by Virginia Henderson, to a reasoning centered on the principle “do with clients”, in the context of their transitions, influenced by Afaf Meleis’s approach.