Caring Science Education to Promote Interprofessional Understanding

The current ANS featured article, available now to download at no cost, is titled

Kathleen Sitzman

“Usefulness of Watson’s Caring Science for Online Educational Practices in Disciplines Outside of Nursing.” The authors, Kathleen Sitzman, PhD, RN, CNE, ANEF, FAAN and Dorothy H. Muller, PhD, report the results of a study to explore the perceptions of people from a wide range of disciplines of the usefulness of Watson’s Caring Science.  Here is a message from Dr.Sitzman about her ongoing work in this area:

I have been conducting research related to Watson’s Caring Science for many years. I teach online nursing courses and so a lot of my work explores caring in online settings. I also teach a Caring Science, Mindful Practice Massive Open Online Course where I regularly interact with people all over the world who are interested in learning about caring and sharing their own caring experiences. So far, almost 4000 people (and counting) have registered for this course, and about 25% of them are not in healthcare or (specifically) nursing. Despite not being nurses and knowing nothing about Watson’s Human Caring Theory when the signed up for the course, my non-nurse learners have responded with enthusiasm, wisdom, and deep understanding as they have progressed through the course. It became apparent to me that Watson’s Caring Science resonated with nurses and non-nurses alike, so I set out to conduct structured research to explore this more fully. This article is the result of my inquiry around this interesting observation.

Currently there is a paucity of research related to applicability of nursing theory outside of the nursing discipline. It is unknown from a formal, academic standpoint, whether Watson’s Caring Science would be considered applicable outside of the nursing discipline and I believe the results that appear in this article provide validation regarding applicability of caring science across disciplines. More research is certainly needed, but this is a good start.

This type of research is important because of the current focus in increasing interdisciplinarity in healthcare and beyond, and I believe that establishing/identifying a shared frame of reference (i.e. principles related to Caring Science) will help people create and maintain productive interdisciplinary collaborations and relationships. Exploration and recognition of basic shared core caring values (i.e. who we “are” as opposed to what we “do”), coupled with shared exploration of trim activities (i.e. varied tasks and job roles that all of us “do” every day), will create common ground upon which to build working relationships with a focus on caring rather than doing. And caring rather doing is a useful approach in nursing, healthcare, and beyond.