Assessing and Measuring Caring in Nursing and Health Science
Jean Watson New York: Springer Publishing Company 2002, 318 pages
Caring is integral to the practice of nursing, yet remains an elusive concept to measure. There has been much debate over the extent that caring can be quantified and measured.
Assessing and Measuring Caring in Nursing and Health Science, authored by Dr Jean Watson, is an initial effort to provide nursing scholars with a much-needed resource for instruments to assess and measure caring. The introductory sections of this remarkable book emphasize the importance of assessing caring and its outcomes while acknowledging the difficult nature of measuring caring in clinical practice and even the ambivalence in measuring such a phenomenon. Yet the reader can sense the author's urgency in advancing nursing research and the body of caring knowledge. Clinicians may find the book helpful in defining and understanding the vastness and importance of caring. Students, educators, and researchers will find the book useful in identifying quality outcomes and indicators of caring practices.
The book is logically organized into three sections: an overview of caring; a summary of each instrument measuring caring; and challenges and future directions. The phenomenon of caring is carefully articulated within the opening chapters. After the introductory sections and a chapter devoted to the background for instrument selection, a compilation of caring instruments in various stages of development is presented. Instruments focus on areas such as perceptions of caring, caring behaviors and abilities, and quality of care. Each instrument is described including the conceptual/theoretical orientation, author/source citations, purpose/use, phase of development, use with participants, and available results of psychometric testing to date. The concluding chapters offer insightful thoughts in forwarding the measurement of caring and create excitement that this initial work will continue.
Overall, the book is a welcome addition to the nursing measurement literature and for the advancement of knowledge of caring and caring practices. Readers will find this book a valuable resource in the historical development of caring within nursing. Scholars will particularly value this compilation of instruments.