The concept of individualised care

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019. The conceptual investigation of individualised care includes the meaning attributed to the term, the uses of the concept in nursing literature and the various proposed definitions of the concept found in the nursing literature. This chapter outlines the utilisation of the individualised care concept in nursing science literature but also in some other health disciplines. Furthermore, the development of the concept in regard to its different meanings and definitions used over time will be examined

Primary nursing: A mode of care or a philosophy of nursing?

An examination of the literature surrounding primary nursing has shown that the term 'primary nursing' is used to mean different things by different authors. This results in a confusing situation where 'primary nursing' is considered by some to mean both a mode of organizing care delivery and a philosophy of nursing. In this paper I argue for a clear separation between the terms which refer to the set of ideas underpinning nursing and descriptions of modes of care. A case is made for using the term 'human centred nursing' to refer to nursing beliefs and 'primary nursing' to refer to the mode of nursing care delivery