Nursing concept analysis in North America: state of the art

Abstract

The strength of a discipline is reflected in the development of a set of concepts relevant to its practice domain. As an evolving professional discipline, nursing requires further development in this respect. Over the past two decades in North America there have emerged three different approaches to concept analysis in nursing scholarship: Wilsonian-derived, evolutionary, and pragmatic utility. The present paper compares and contrasts these three methods of concept in terms of purpose, procedures, philosophical underpinnings, limitations, guidance for researchers, and ability to contribute to nursing knowledge and disciplinary advancement. This work extends prior criticisms of concept analysis methods, especially as formulated by Morse and colleagues, by promoting further critical discussion regarding the direction and effectiveness of nursing efforts to meet the basic needs of disciplinary development. Its central thesis is that nursing concept analysis must advance beyond the Wilsonian-derived methods of Walker and Avant by devoting greater attention to understanding the domain of concepts to be analysed and deriving features from these contexts.

Cancer survivorship: Advancing the concept in the context of colorectal cancer

“…However, problems arise when concepts are extensively used, as ambiguity arises in the definition and terminology describing the concept (Rodgers and Knafl, 2000). Without clear conceptual foundation, the quality of subsequent research and theory development is weakened (Weaver and Mitcham, 2008). Research on cancer survivorship issues has flourished over the past three decades.…”

Person‐centred care: clarifying the concept in the context of inpatient psychiatry

“…Rodgers (6) argues that when applying an evolutionary approach on content analysis, the selection of literature within the chosen domains should be made using a probability sampling. However, this technique has been criticised for being driven statistically rather than conceptually (7). Hence, for the purposes of this study, an extensive search was made using clearly defined criteria for inclusion and exclusion of literature.…”

Concept analysis in healthcare research

“…The emergence of concept analysis within healthcare disciplines has been associated primarily with the notion that a discipline is responsible for building its scientific research base from a set of well developed key concepts pertaining to its area of interest (Weaver and Mitcham, 2008).…”

“…As an example, at the end of the last century it was discerned that a limitation to the development of the knowledge base of nursing is the ambiguous use of concepts in research (Weaver and Mitcham, 2008).…”