title: Nursing as a caring practice from a phenomenological perspective.
abstract: Nursing is frequently described as a caring practice. What this concept means may be less clear. This paper considers nursing as a caring practice in three steps. First, the concept of practice based on Taylor's and MacIntyre's philosophical definitions of the term is described. Secondly, numerous notions of caring are presented; the call from some nurse researchers for quantification of the concept and why this is problematic is discussed; and an exposition of caring from a phenomenological perspective is provided. Finally, the notions of practice and caring are joined, and the concept of a caring practice is presented. Nursing as a public caring practice is illustrated with examples from an interpretive phenomenological study. In conclusion, it is claimed that a phenomenological view of caring combined with a comprehensive definition of practice is well suited to nursing, and allows for a description of nurses' caring practices from both a nursing and patient perspective.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Nursing Science, University Basel, Switzerland. elisabeth.spichiger@unibas.ch
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Spichiger
authors.forename: Margaret I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Wallhagen
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Benner
mesh_terms: D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D009729:Nursing; D015399:Nursing Research; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing