{"title":"Nursing as a Functional System of Society. A Systems Theoretical Perspective on Nursing and the Research Object of Nursing Science.","authors":"Christopher Dietrich","doi":"10.1111/nup.70014","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The transformation of societies' age structures has intensified the need for nursing care, especially in economically developed regions of the world. This will necessitate societal decisions that determine how care needs are met in the long term. This article offers a sociological perspective on nursing care using Luhmann's systems theory. To make the designation of a functional nursing system with independent observation plausible, social changes were traced based on historical events, semantics, and other social structures to develop the primary view of the nursing system. On this basis, a functional definition of the nursing system and its relationship to problems and problem-solving is possible. This proposal is intended to clarify the fundamental questions of nursing science: What is nursing and what is behind it? Through abstraction, this article develops a unified representation of nursing's distinct way of observation to support the determination of a unique research object for nursing science as an academic discipline. In line with Brandenburg's statement that nursing science must follow the interests of others as long as it is not possible to conquer a terrain occupied by the discipline independently, the need to develop a genuine discipline remains. Only then, it is assumed, can nursing science significantly contribute to other functional systems and to societal decisions that will determine how care needs are addressed in the future.</p>","PeriodicalId":49724,"journal":{"name":"Nursing Philosophy","volume":"26 1","pages":"e70014"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11771555/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nursing Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.70014","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"NURSING","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The transformation of societies' age structures has intensified the need for nursing care, especially in economically developed regions of the world. This will necessitate societal decisions that determine how care needs are met in the long term. This article offers a sociological perspective on nursing care using Luhmann's systems theory. To make the designation of a functional nursing system with independent observation plausible, social changes were traced based on historical events, semantics, and other social structures to develop the primary view of the nursing system. On this basis, a functional definition of the nursing system and its relationship to problems and problem-solving is possible. This proposal is intended to clarify the fundamental questions of nursing science: What is nursing and what is behind it? Through abstraction, this article develops a unified representation of nursing's distinct way of observation to support the determination of a unique research object for nursing science as an academic discipline. In line with Brandenburg's statement that nursing science must follow the interests of others as long as it is not possible to conquer a terrain occupied by the discipline independently, the need to develop a genuine discipline remains. Only then, it is assumed, can nursing science significantly contribute to other functional systems and to societal decisions that will determine how care needs are addressed in the future.
期刊介绍：
Nursing Philosophy provides a forum for discussion of philosophical issues in nursing. These focus on questions relating to the nature of nursing and to the phenomena of key relevance to it. For example, any understanding of what nursing is presupposes some conception of just what nurses are trying to do when they nurse. But what are the ends of nursing? Are they to promote health, prevent disease, promote well-being, enhance autonomy, relieve suffering, or some combination of these? How are these ends are to be met? What kind of knowledge is needed in order to nurse? Practical, theoretical, aesthetic, moral, political, ''intuitive'' or some other?
Papers that explore other aspects of philosophical enquiry and analysis of relevance to nursing (and any other healthcare or social care activity) are also welcome and might include, but not be limited to, critical discussions of the work of nurse theorists who have advanced philosophical claims (e.g., Benner, Benner and Wrubel, Carper, Schrok, Watson, Parse and so on) as well as critical engagement with philosophers (e.g., Heidegger, Husserl, Kuhn, Polanyi, Taylor, MacIntyre and so on) whose work informs health care in general and nursing in particular.
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