EDITORIAL
Nursing art and science of care
Marcia de Assunção Ferreira
Doutora em Enfermagem. Professora Titular do Departamento de Enfermagem Fundamental da Escola de Enfermagem Anna Nery, da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Pesquisadora 2 do CNPq
The subject matter Theories, Models and Processes of Care, the subject of this number that closes year 2011, is very appropriate, in spite of the issues that are important to contemporary nursing. This is because the field of nursing is experiencing a major and peculiar moment in the science and technology scenario.
The historical trajectory of modern nursing throughout its 150 years since it was founded in the nineteenth century, as a profession dedicated to the art of caring, displays the efforts that have been made, gradually and systematically, to build a practice based on science in view of the constitution of a unique and appropriate field of science in order to approach people who need comfort, welfare, care, relief of suffering in sum, care.
The course of events in the history of nursing in the scientific field indicates the ways in which nurses, intellectuals of the area, have been developing the science of nursing while trying to achieve status in the scientific field. In the process of (re) construction of knowledge, research plays an essential role because it allows (re) developing the knowledge needed to support science. In nursing, research is an important part of the review process, proposing and testing of concepts, meanings, theories, models and processes of care - (re) affirming the art and (re) building the science of care.
We cannot speak of science without addressing research, which is defined, in particular, by the application of theories and methods. So if we are making great efforts to provide an epistemological status that ensures that nursing achieves the status of science; care and its purposes, require a systematic approach, based on explanations and methodologies, particularly expressed in their own theories, models of care and in processes of care so that we can certainly support the knowledge of the area and its statements.
If science is produced with theory and method, nursing care is produced with art and science. In this endeavor, we must consider that the meaning of our science, nursing, is the practice, the space in which we exercise our art, the field where our knowledge is applied. Therefore, bringing to the discussions the theories of nursing and their applicability to the research and care of nursing; the conceptual and epistemological nursing care; the processes of care and attention; the care models and models of nursing care, beyond the systematization of care and the diagnosis language of nursing, central object of our study, gives us the opportunity to reflect, criticize, refute, (re) assert and confirm our knowledge, in (re) construction since the founding of the profession by Florence Nightingale.
In her honor she who dedicated her life to care for sick people, and because of this, she acted in favor of life and human health, we invite readers of the Anna Nery School of Nursing Journal to reflect and discuss how nursing care's scientific production is organized; what is being done with the product of our research; what kind of results are we obtaining with the application of this production and the social impact that nursing has produced. Finding these answers and acting on behalf of them, is our duty, commitment and social responsibility.
Utilizou-se esta expressão com base em Demo (2000), pois em sua obra sobre metodologia do conhecimento científico, este autor opta por aludir à reconstrução do conhecimento e não à construção, pois defende que se parta, sempre, de algo que já se sabe sobre o objeto investigado.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
14 Mar 2012 -
Date of issue
Dec 2011
