Published October 31, 2001
Response by Edward J. Halloran to
What Makes Something A Nursing Activity or Task
by Greer Glazer (June 23, 2000)
Letter to the Legislative Editor:
The concern raised in Glazer's Legislative Column, "What Makes Something a Nursing Activity or Task" is not new. From the outset of modern nursing, the task, variously known as the procedure, activity, skill, technique, and intervention, has been an important way to describe what nurses are taught and what they do. What gives life to this operational description of nursing is the context in which these tasks are done. One such context is described in Basic Principles of Nursing Care (Henderson, 1997) published by the International Council of Nurses (ICN), an essay about nursing now translated into 31 languages. The essay, authored by Virginia Henderson, says: nurses help people, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health, its recovery (or to a peaceful death) that they would perform unaided if they had the necessary strength, will or knowledge, and the nurses do so in such a way as to help the persons become independent as rapidly as possible. Henderson, along with contributors, also wrote a 2119 page, 50 chapter, research-based textbook on how nursing is done (Henderson & Nite, 1997), also published by the ICN. Tasks are featured prominently in this extraordinary well- referenced text. A task is not only what a nurse does for a person who lacks strength, will or knowledge, but it is also what the nurse transfers to the person (and family) with encouragement and education as they gain strength so they can become independent as rapidly as possible. Brooten and Naylor (Brooten & Naylor, 1995; Brooten, et al., 1994; Naylor, et al., 1999) have repeatedly tested this description of nursing and its research supports (or rather, has failed to refute this theory of nursing). Both Basic Principles of Nursing Care and Principles and Practice of Nursing have been reprinted by the ICN with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and are available from American Nurses Publishing http://nursingworld.org/anp/palpha.cfm#P. I highly recommend these reference texts be used to answer questions about what tasks nurses do.
Edward J. Halloran
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
And The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (1999-2000)
Published October 31, 2001
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