Nursing profession deals with complex health care phenomena and processes on a daily basis. The complexity is not only in practice, but it is evident in research and education too. For instance, learning about compassion and compassionate behaviours (education), researching about how compassion is demonstrated and what do patients and families want from nurses (research), to actually practicing compassion (practice). Given such complexity, I believe holistic care holds a great place in the nursing discipline. Health usually refers to as a complete state of physical, mental, emotional, social, well-being. People who visit hospitals due to various kinds of health problems need not only physical, but emotional care too. All of these factors indicates that holistic care is integral to nursing.

Holistic nursing care is the one of central concepts in nursing.To conduct holistic care nurses need evidance based practices.

Nursing which is not holistic is not really nursing. The holistic view is central to all of nursing.

I think the concept of holistic care is very interesting. I think the first thing that you need to do is define what holistic means in relation to nursing- The training recieved for nursing covers many areas as you know , social/mental/physical/spiritual - but are you questioning whether the training is translating into practice? or that the training isnt 'holistic ' enough - should we be incorporating complimantary care , for example - CBT, EFT, massage etc

Totally agree, in the 23 hours and 50 minutes the doctors are not with the patient, it is our responsibility to provide holistic (physical and psychological ) care to the patient and family/friends. Especially so for patients; with a poor prognosis, at end stage of their disease or ceiling of care. Usually a distressing and confronting situation.

I think that several of the previous posters are absolutely correct in that nursing by it's nature is holistic. I do not see that as a specialty as I would, say, critical care nursing, or oncology nursing. What I do see as an area of special interest would be a specialty of alternative nursing practice that would be a focus on supportive treatments such as meditation, relaxation, yoga... which I could see as what you refer to as "holistic" nursing. This would stand out from traditional nursing as an area of expertise that would make sense to me to know that my nurse was skilled in. I think the mind body connection is dramatically powerful and stabilizing for a patient who has lost large amounts of control in their life and these practices would help them to gain back some level of balance and control.

I do not agree with the point as holistic care is practiced as an integral part of any kind of patient care. I feel it's a component of every nursing care and not separable as a different specialty.

You can received certification for Holistic Nursing and there are college programs centered on integrative therapy (or do you not want to incldue integrative therapy?). Maybe I do not understand your questions. http://www.ahncc.org/ https://www.nursing.umn.edu/degrees-programs/doctor-nursing-practice/post-baccalaureate/integrative-health-and-healing

I answer with a record, that offers a complex assessment for person with ill, but il is difficult to develop these competencies in practice.

Do you think?

Thank you goes to those who engaged my question and generously shared your views.

I believe nursing practice needs to embrace body, mind and spirit all in one because if one aspect fails it affects the others. Cultural care, spiritual care and physical care should be important component of holistic nursing.

Florence Nightingale’s work is often considered as the true essence of holistic nursing, fresh air, clean environment…. She was truly concerned about the body, mind and spirit of the ill.

Modern nursing is the Science and Art, very often, sorely focusing on the aspect of science becomes the detriment of the art, and art, is what lift our spirit. Nursing, really is a healing art, and anything less than that is not worthy of our endeavour. To me, nursing should be the combination of very solid science and very creative aspect of art. This is truly of nursing where we can do our finest work.

I agree what Giovanna, said on Sylvia's post on views

Holism brings the knowledge of the individual back to that of the whole. In our discipline, every nurse will explain to you that you have to take care of the patient as a whole but the reality of the field is quite different. Depending on the country, the institution, the history of the profession, its culture, the attitude of the nurse will reveal a more or less holistic care and in my country (Belgium), it is often split off (by the specializations put in place) between "hyper-technical" care and "psychological" care creating a gap between the two. This gap no longer allows support in a set and creates failures even if each nurse feels invested by his profession.

Holistic care provides the best bedside and home care. Nurses are providing for the disease of admission, but to be holistic a nurse needs to know a person's background. Background is the culture, situation, and level of ability to access care for wellbeing. This requires a nurse to be able to spend time in conversation with the people under the nurse's care. Nurses need to listen to what a person thinks about their wellbeing even in the event of a disease process. I don't think nurses are as good at that as they need to be. Having said that in the current US health care system as a for profit entity, nurses are not afforded the time in the US production model of health care.

The article that Giovanna provided is immensly rich in its depth and breadth. The approach of considering the "bio-physical dimension (disease), the psychological-perceptive (illness) and the socio-relational profile (sickness)" has great value as we attempt to care for patients holistically. As mentioned by others the reality of attempting this in an environment where we are planning a patient's discharge at the moment that they are admitted sets up a clear conflict.

The narrative approach of determining the patient's story will, in my estimation, get diluted through transitions of care from shift to shift and and nurse to nurse. The complexity of weaving together these different stories gets increasingly more complex on many fronts as a reimbusment system that is increasingly moving towards demonstrable results as the measure that drives payments. If the patient narrative values care that deviates from this trajectory how will that impact coverage for the services that a patient desires?

As a nurse with many patients to care for, finding time to to be truely present to hear the patient narrative and to gather direction from it to supplement the disease related interventions will be immensely challenging. Methods to consistently record the narrative in universially understandable terms will be a significant undertaking. Even the use of tools such as electronic health records which attempt to guide us in this direction of standardization are not really capable of eliminating personal interpretation.

In my read of our healthcare system in the US we need to strive for more localized care from providers and nurses who are mmore intimately connected with patiens and their stories so that we keep the elements of connection, relationship, understanding and compassion as the foundations of the care that we are providing. The better I know my patient the more effective I will be at providing "holistic" care that encompasses all the needed facets of care.

Holistic nursing is based on works of Florence Nightingale and Jean Watson, There was a time when nurses in certain areas were not allowed to be married while they needed to devote their whole life to the profession. Today this is unrealistic when nurses are sitting in front of the computer filling in all kinds of details and when the discussion is about replacing humans with robots which are observed from an office. We found that in psychiatry nurses need to be acquainted with mental disordered patients in order to overcome prejudices against these:

Holistic care is an integral and a component of nursing care. Nursing is holistic by its nature and philosophy. I do not see that as a specialty as I would, say, diabetes nursing, or pediatric nursing.

I believe holistic nursing can be both a nursing specialty, as well as integrated into any specialty area of nursing. The difficulty is changing the organizational culture to accept holistic nursing, as well as modalities that nurses can offer within their scope of practice. Our medical center adopted Jean Watson's theory in 2013, and as much as we tried as a hospital and system, it ended up being the "theory du jour", instead of a culture change. Many disciplines, including nursing, still perceive holistic nursing as just modalities, however there is a theoretical and scientific basis to holistic nursing care. Organizations that successfully integrate holistic nursing into their cultures have better patient satisfaction and nurse satisfaction. It takes commitment and the village of the organizational culture to embrace that philosophy, from nursing to medicine to dietary to housekeeping, but an organization must be willing to invest the time and energy to embrace it. Unfortunately some organizations feel there are too many competing priorities to invest the time and energy, however, I have seen hospital systems that do it successfully and it does become part of the culture.

Holistic Nursing is a good name but it is important to define the holistic. It may mean different things to different people like Chinese, Malaysians, Indians, Europeans etc. If it is thought about from perspective of religion then it may have additional meanings and these are particularly helpful to patients as their state of spirituality improves with inputs from religions. Its effective in Muslim hospitals or Islamic hospitals depending how it is named where Qur’an is played for patients to be cared for and its part of nursing that may become a specialty. In Islam, the Qur’an as the word of Allah is a medicine for every disease. Hence, why not to make it a specialty as it requires dedication and mastery of how to attain the holistic.

Holistic nursing is part of being a nurse where all aspects of the patients care needs are considered and incorporated in the care-provision. An ANP can lead, coordinate, signpost and involve the appropriate members of the multidisciplinary team in achieving holistic care-provion. It cannot be a separate discipline of nursing as it in its philosophy underpins the essentials of nursing.

Nursing becomes more and more difficult with a nihilistic view of the human being and in some countries legal killing of human beings in both ends of the life span. Moral conflicts burden the nursing profession: