1. Introduction
In recent years, with the development of the social economy and the continuous progress of medicine, the medical model has developed from the biomedical model to the “biological-psychological-social” modern medical model, emphasizing the role of people’s psychological conditions in the occurrence and development of diseases. Influenced by the modern medical model, American nursing scientist Watson [1] put forward the concept of nursing humanistic care in 1979 and clearly pointed out that humanistic care is the connotation of nursing [2]. Article 18 of the “Regulations on Nurses” promulgated by the State Council of my country in 2008 clearly pointed out that nurses should give patients full respect and care in their work [3]. It can be seen that caring is the essence of nursing, and caring nursing is the responsibility and mission of nurses in clinical work.
Concepts Related to Humanistic Care Nursing
Humanistic care nursing refers to nursing practice in which nurses provide care and assistance for the life, health, personality and dignity, rights and needs of patients with a humanistic spirit. While implementing nursing technical services, they also need to provide patients with psychological care and emotional comfort, etc. [4].
Humanistic care quality of nurses refers to the internal professional temperament or characteristics formed by specific cultural education and with stability tendency, which can be manifested through nursing humanistic care actions. It includes four dimensions: caring concept, knowledge, ability and perception. Among them, the nursing humanistic caring ability is the embodiment of nursing workers’ active and spontaneous implementation of caring care. It is not innate but gradually formed through continuous accumulation of experience and knowledge under the guidance of a certain environment and education [5].
2. Current Status of Humanistic Care Nursing Research Abroad
2.1. Proposition of the Theory of Caring
The caring theory began in the 1960s and was proposed by nursing scholar Leininger. Leininger believes that caring is a kind of behavior that guides, cares for, or helps implement objects to enhance or improve their health status or behavior and is the cornerstone of social development [6]. Subsequently, by 1971, scholar Mayeroff further summarized the main characteristics of caring: honesty, knowledge, trust, alternating rhythm, patience, courage and hope, and creatively put forward the concept of caring so that both carers could grow [7]. In 1985, nursing expert Watson [1] believed that humanistic care is the essence of nursing. Watson pointed out that caring is a consciously embodied value and attitude. In the process of caring, nurses should not only pay attention to the physical health of patients but also pay attention to their spirit and psychology, as well as protect the dignity of patients [1].
2.2. Humanistic Care Curriculum Education
Watson believes that caring courses and practical training can improve the humanistic caring ability of nursing staff. In the 1980s, the “American Higher Nursing Education Standards” added humanities education to the nursing professional curriculum teaching system. This move makes humanistic care education move towards the core position of nursing education [8]. Since then, many foreign scholars have fully integrated caring theoretical knowledge and nursing professional knowledge when creating the curriculum system, paying attention to caring practice education, and the main courses of humanistic care are compulsory courses, and humanistic courses account for 25% of the total courses [9].
In terms of teaching methods, foreign nursing scholars have also carried out a lot of research. Wikstrom [10] conducted research on caring teaching for nursing students in Swedish universities through visual art communication, which improved the nursing students’ empathy and understanding of the connotation of caring. Sitzman [11] scholars through the research on humanistic care in online teaching, pointed out that in the process of online teaching, it is necessary to pay attention to the active interaction between teachers and students, the use of empathy, and timely guidance. Marguerite [12] combines caring education with the Internet and uses beautiful pictures on the Internet to create a good humanistic care training and learning environment. In the training, it uses the form of storytelling to show students the humanistic care in various situations. The content of the implementation, at the same time, uses the method of virtual dance characters to show the communication and interaction between teachers and students in the teaching process. A series of measures show the various possibilities of humanistic care education from an innovative perspective. Scholars such as Arveklev [13] pointed out that nursing students are not easy to understand caring theory in depth, and adopting experiential teaching methods such as situational exercises can better enable students to acquire relevant knowledge of the humanistic caring practice. Kumagai [14] used narrative education to improve nursing students’ ability to practice humanistic care, and promoted nursing students’ understanding of caring through various art forms such as music and movies, and stimulated nursing students’ empathy.
2.3. Humanistic Care Nursing Practice
In caring practice abroad, nursing experts pay attention to the practical application of a series of caring theories to promote the transformation between theory and nursing practice. Deborah applied the humanistic theory of Paterson and Zderad to the field of hospice and palliative care to better understand the needs of patients in the final stages of their lives [15]. Behice experts used Watson’s nursing theory in the nursing of hypertensive patients, and confirmed that the theory has a promoting effect on reducing blood pressure in patients [16]. Based on Watson’s nursing theory, Sylvain scholars constructed a model based on the quality of work and life of front-line nursing managers, and expounded its significance to nursing management [17]. Professor Richard applied Swanson’s theory of care to explore AIDS care and care, and played a good role in implementing care for AIDS patients [18].
3. Current Status of Domestic Humanistic Care Nursing Research
3.1. Humanistic Care Course Education
The domestic research in the field of nursing humanistic care began in the 1990s, lagging behind western countries. Nursing humanistic education has not been paid much attention to, and no special curriculum has been set up. In the 21st century, with the gradual development of nursing, the mode of clinical nursing has been transformed into a holistic nursing mode, and humanistic nursing education has been paid more and more attention. Through continuous study and exploration, domestic nursing scholars have gradually set up a series of humanistic care courses such as “Nursing Interpersonal Communication” and “Nurse Humanistic Cultivation” [4]. However, the curriculum is still insufficient. A survey of more than 20 medical colleges in my country on humanistic care courses showed that the average proportion of compulsory courses was 16.8% [9]. At the same time, pure theoretical courses are separated from clinical practice, which makes nursing humanistic education formalized, and the training effect is poor. In response to this problem, some nursing educators have combined humanistic care training with professional nursing disciplines such as “Basics of Nursing”, aiming to improve the nursing students’ caring ability in nursing practice. The course “Interpersonal Communication in Nursing” constructed by scholar Wu Ming fully integrates the concept of humanistic care in the teaching objectives and evaluation, and pays attention to the practical education of humanistic care, which significantly improves the nursing students’ understanding of caring [19].
In recent years, nursing schools have also begun to use various innovative teaching methods to improve the training effect of humanistic care, such as situational experiential teaching, modular teaching, narrative education, flipped classroom, case discussion, etc. The purpose is to change the traditional teaching method. Methods, through flexible and diverse teaching methods to attract students’ interest, better explain the connotation of humanistic care and cultivate students’ humanistic care ability [20] [21] [22]. For example, scholar Guo Yujie has developed a four-part teaching model with caring experience and practice as the main body, “setting environment-passion-practice-introduction”. Feedback improves students’ humanistic care ability [23]. Gao Chenchen developed a narrative education system through practice and used narrative materials and methods to vividly reproduce clinical situations, which promoted students’ thinking and improved caring perception [24]. In her education and practice, Jiang Xia integrated the “Knowledge, Belief, and Action” model into the teaching of humanistic care, and the training of students’ caring knowledge, beliefs and behaviors improved their humanistic care ability and patients’ satisfaction with nursing services [25].
3.2. Clinical Practice of Humanistic Care Nursing
In clinical nursing, many hospitals have gradually realized the importance of humanistic care nursing, and humanistic care research has also shifted from theoretical research to clinical practice research. In terms of humanistic care training for nursing staff, nursing scholar Liu Yilan has cultivated clinical nurses’ humanistic caring ability and improved service quality through numerous measures such as narrative education [26], building a care delivery chain [27], and caring story sharing [28]. Chen Ping improved her humanistic care level by implementing experiential training for nurses in geriatric wards [29]. Nursing managers pay more attention to key groups such as newly recruited nurses [30], outpatient nurses [31], psychiatric nurses [32], pediatric nurses [33], etc. in humanistic care training, and conduct research on the current situation and influencing factors of humanistic care quality, to provide a basis for scientifically formulating effective humanistic care training measures to improve the humanistic care ability of nurses.
In the aspect of humanistic care practice, some hospitals have created a humanistic care demonstration ward to bring out the point, create a good humanistic care atmosphere, and gradually improve the nursing ability of nurses [34]. Some nursing managers have established specialized humanistic care bundle strategies for special patients such as tumor patients [35] [36], ophthalmology patients [37], critically ill patients [38], mentally ill patients [39] and AIDS patients [40]. In addition, through a series of targeted and detailed care management, such as forming a caring team, establishing caring nursing service standards, using caring intervention methods such as caring touch, etc., actively creating a caring atmosphere to improve patients’ experience of medical treatment. At the same time, the nursing management department also pays attention to the supervision of the practice of nurses’ humanistic care behaviors and helps nurses to better implement humanistic care [41] [42].
4. Summary
In recent years, the state has promulgated a series of documents to strengthen the humanistic care training of medical staff. In 2009, the State Council issued the “Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Reform of the Medical and Health System”, which pointed out that it is necessary to build a healthy and harmonious doctor-patient relationship and focus on cultivating the caring ability and professional quality of medical staff. The document “2011 Work Plan for Promoting Quality Nursing Services” and the “Notice on Further Deepening Quality Nursing and Improving Nursing Services” promulgated in 2015 clearly stated that “nursing staff should provide patients with caring care, and give patients active care, careful care and physical and mental care”. In addition, the “Outline of China’s Nursing Development Plan (2016-2020)” promulgated by the National Health and Family Planning Commission repeatedly mentioned the concept of “humanity”, and proposed “to strengthen the nursing professional humanistic education and professional quality education with job competency as the core”. It can be seen that there is an increasing demand for strengthening the education of “humanistic care” and providing “patient-centered” humanistic care services [43] [44] [45] [46]. The importance of the cultivation of humanistic care ability has been unanimously recognized by the industry, society and government, and it is the task and mission of nursing education [47].
Looking at the development status of humanistic care in domestic colleges and universities, in general, nursing humanistic care training faces a series of problems such as lack of systematic training system, relatively simple training form, insufficient training content, lack of humanistic care quality evaluation standards, and lack of training effect [48]. How to effectively carry out humanistic care training and education is an urgent problem that schools and hospitals need to solve.
At present, with the rapid development of Internet information technology, in the 2018 report on the work of the Chinese government, Premier Li Keqiang proposed to vigorously develop the “Internet + education” teaching model to promote the sharing of high-quality resources [49], so the use of Internet media for teaching Activity has become a new direction of teaching mode research. Therefore, in humanistic care training and education, how to effectively use modern information technology, innovate the form of humanistic care education, implement humanistic care, improve patients’ medical experience and improve their satisfaction is the direction that clinical nursing experts continue to explore.