Articles: empathy.
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Two nursing leaders, Madeleine Leininger and Jean Watson, have devoted their careers to studying and evolving the meaning of caring. The theme of caring as presented by each theorist was explored along with their views of the nature of nursing, use of theory development strategies, and their individual contributions to the development of nursing knowledge. Both identify nursing as a humanistic science, with the concept of caring being the central unifying domain of nursing. ⋯ For Leininger, caring must be placed in a cultural context since caring patterns can differ transculturally. Watson has focused on the philosophic (existential--phenomenological) and spiritual basis of caring and sees caring as the ethical and moral ideal of nursing. Both Leininger and Watson have demonstrated their artistry in their individual portraits of caring and in their contributions to the development of nursing knowledge.
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When patients and their families experience the crisis of sudden hospitalization, much energy is spent providing curative interventions and physical care, often with little time available to help the family deal with the crisis. Incorporating caring behaviors into the cadre of critical care interventions must be used to help patients and families deal with the crisis. Caring is a basic value of health care delivery and embodies a spiritual and metaphysical dimension concerned with preserving, protecting, and enhancing human dignity. ⋯ Four basic behaviors form a foundation for the Humanistic CARE Model and include the interconnection and interrelation of communication, advocacy, reciprocity, and empathy. Finally, our caring actions affect each of the lives we touch. The knowledge that those actions make a difference in the lives of critically ill patients and their families provides us with the insight that we have succeeded in incorporating CARE into caring for families in crisis.