Clinical Application of Nightingale’s Environmental Theory

Vol.3  No.1

Year: 2013

Issue: Feb-Apr

Title : Clinical Application of Nightingale’s Environmental Theory 

Author Name : Shirin Rahim 

Synopsis :

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) the first nursing theorist and the first one to lay the foundation of modern nursing has based her philosophy on spiritualism. Selanders (2010) quotes (Cook, 1913, Vol. 1, p. 15) in saying, that “She records in her diary an interaction with God at age 16 when He “called her to His service” (p.82). Her devotion towards God and her belief of spirituality was the foundation of almost all that Nightingale did as a nurse and for nursing profession. (Allighood and Tommy 2010). Nightingale has taken the same premise for her environmental theory. In this theory Nightingale (1860) has emphasized that nature has some laws which if applied correctly on humans, help those who are ill to restore health and those who are healthy to remain prevented from illness and promote health. The 13 sub concepts of environment which are called canons by Nightingale (1860) are actually the conditions which if adequately present in the environment help in healing. This paper will analyze a clinical scenario in light of Nightingale’s environmental theory and its three canons (ventilation, bed and bedding and personal cleanliness), and propose hypothesis which can be used to test a nursing intervention based on Nightingale’s theory to change the unpleased outcome of this and more like scenarios.