[Covenant or contract? A reflection on two paradigms of the nursing relationship].
This article contains a critical reflexion about two paradigms upon which nurse-patient relationships can be based: the traditional covenant, rooting in religion and ethics and the business-orientated contract. The motive for this reflexion lies in the present economic, scientific and societal context of nursing practice, which threatens traditional nursing values. It leads to an inflation of the covenant paradigm in favour of the contract paradigm, which implies greater efficiency. Following the description of the two paradigms the way they determine nursing relationships is being compared. On the basis of this confrontation the contract as basis of the nursing relationship is discarded. Finally, questions concerning the future positioning of nursing and of nursing science in terms of the foundation and of the profile of the nurse-patient relationship are asked.
UniversitätsSpital Zürich. silvia.kaeppeli@usz.ch
Silvia
S
Käppeli
D015400:Clinical Nursing Research; D003284:Contract Services; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D006801:Humans; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012068:Religion and Medicine