title: [The concept of nursing. A systematic analysis].
abstract: Nursing is a field which employs numerous people whose formation and professional roles are regulated by a wide set of rules and norms, and one which benefits innumerable patients. A paradox exists when, upon consulting various dictionaries, one of these the Royal Academy Dictionary (Diccionario de la Real Academia), the term nursing is defined as a physical space/set of nurses without any reference whatsoever to nurses' role in the health and educational systems. The definition we find in a dictionary should correspond to the concept the general public holds and reflect the true meaning of the profession. During a three year period, academic years 1994-96, on the first day of class, we asked each student to define or describe what he/she understood nursing to be. We consider that their responses, in a large sense, should correspond to the idea which the general public holds about nursing. An analysis of the content of these definitions allowed us to establish that there is a clear confrontation between what dictionaries state and what students, as a sample of society as a whole, think. Our results permit us to offer a definition for nursing which may be incorporated into new dictionary editions for the purpose of completing the already existing ones.
authors.affiliation: Escuela Universitaria, Universidad de Valencia.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Camaño
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Piqué
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D007587:Job Description; D016294:Models, Nursing; D009742:Nursing Theory; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D012660:Semantics; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*