Abstract : Nurses provide nursing practice in the pursuit of quality nursing,
which is in the patients’ best interests. Underneath the nursing practice, nurses
use knowledge and skills based on what they have learned from the nursing
profession. The principles embedding nursing knowledge and skills steer the
nurses to perform competent nursing practice.
This qualitative study was designed to explore what nurses perceive as nursing
principles. The assumption of this study was that nurses use principles
whenever they provide nursing practice, although they may not recognize this
during their practice. What nurses perceive as nursing principles might be
different based on the many factors that influence and facilitate nurses to
perform nursing practice. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the nursing
principles from the perception of nurses in nursing practice.
Valuable sources of data included the focus groups of 12 registered
nurses and the in-depth interviews of four experts in the nursing profession
including instructors and practitioners. According to the findings of nurses’
perception, nursing principles were seen as the entity of the nursing profession.
Nursing principles were composed of four characteristics or components,
namely;1) nursing care for patient safety; 2) holistic nursing care; 3) nursing
care based on standards of nursing; and 4) nursing care using the scientific
knowledge of the art of nursing derived from nursing and related sciences.
Nurses perceived the importance of nursing principles throughout
learning and experiencing nursing practice. Furthermore, they accepted that
nursing principles represent the nursing profession and also sustain quality
ofnursing practice.
Thai Journal of Nursing Council 2010; 25(1) 27-37