![]() Instead of joking about the illness or offering fake platitudes, she suggested that patients should be exposed to good news. She believed that nurses who attempted to falsely cheer up a patient were not creating an appropriate environment. Social Considerations and the Environmental Theory of Nursingįlorence Nightingale also believed that nurses could encourage or discourage the healing process based on their interactions with a patient. She believed that if nurses could keep their skin free from “obstructing excretions,” then they could maintain their good health. She encouraged nurses to wash their hands frequently throughout the day as a way to fend of illness. Nightingale also stressed that nurses should also focus on improving their own personal cleanliness. Personal cleanliness didn’t apply just to the environment of the patient. She encouraged nurses to never lean or sit on a bed. Nightingale also believed that a patient’s bed was their own domain. Unless the bedding was changed and aired-out frequently, it could become difficult for a patient to recover. These organic deposits would then stay on the sheets and other bedding, negatively affecting the environment. Nightingale recognized that patients who had to remain in bed would exhale a lot of moisture thorough their skin and lungs every day. Personal Cleanliness and the Environmental Theory of Nursing This stimulation could then encourage the body to continue healing. By bringing in fresh flowers, changing uniform colors, or rotating the artwork in a room, it could stimulate the senses of the patient. Any unnecessary noise was considered to be a cruel and unusual punishment to a patient.įlorence Nightingale also believed that variety was important to the healing process. ![]() She believed that nurses should never wake up people intentionally or even accidentally during the first part of sleep. ![]() ![]() Nightingale also believed that sleep had an intensely powerful healing effect on the body. Nightingale often believed that one of the best things a patient could be given was direct access to sunlight. If there was a temperature imbalance, then there was a greater risk of becoming ill due to being too warm or too cold. Nightingale also believed that a home should not be too warm or too cold. She believed that the exposure to foul odors would create “noxious air” that would need to be removed for the healing process to begin. Nightingale believed that people who repeatedly breathed their own air, without any new fresh air coming into a home, would eventually become sick and then remain that way. Here are some examples of this from her environmental theory of nursing. This meant that Nightingale believed that people who did not take care of their personal environments properly would be more susceptible to disease. She simply believed that nurses could make environmental modifications to help eliminate the promotion of internal disease. Nightingale even said that medical practitioners know nothing of health except for when it is either positive or negative. She didn’t even attempt to define what “good health” would actually be. By adding light, warmth, fresh air, quietness, and cleanliness to the environment in a proper order, then along with meeting nutritional needs, a patient could “unmake what God had made disease to be.” How Nightingale Believed Disease Would Formįlorence Nightingale didn’t use her environmental theory of nursing to create definitions of who was a patient or a human being. Nursing, she proposed, was more than just emotionally caring for a patient, following doctor’s orders, or meeting physical needs. Nightingale believed that there were many natural elements that could help a patient begin to have their health restored. By configuring the environment of a patient so that it best meets their needs at that moment, it would assist in the healing process. Florence Nightingale’s environmental theory of nursing has one core principle: that nursing is the act of utilizing the environment of the patient in order to assist that patient in their recovery.
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