Presence

Abstract

Healthy therapeutic relationships enhance wholeness and healing; they are the key to effective health promotion. Therapeutic nursing presence demonstrates caring, empathy, and connection, qualities required to build rapport and trust between nurse and patient. This concept analysis’ purpose was to illuminate the various forms of the meanings of presence and the value placed on them. The science of nursing often precedes the art and spirituality of nursing. This is due to focusing primarily on the high acuity of the patients being seen in conjunction with shortage of personnel and resources. Patient dissatisfaction continues to be a growing concern. The nursing shortage crisis continues along with more nurses experiencing moral distress, compassion fatigue, and/or burnout. In nurses’ haste to complete their duties, are we facing the risk of overlooking one of the original gifts of the nursing profession? This would be the gift of genuine presence. This concept analysis aims to identify the attributes that are essential to the concept of presence, and to clarify its nursing usage, by following the strategy suggested by Walker and Avant. It is important to reflect on various ways of providing presence in the clinical setting. By exploring the spiritual, literary, psychological, and nursing literature, there is a diverse yet similar interconnectivity of what presence may represent. Observations and experiences of a range of sensatory and kinesthetic perceptions are revealed to ascertain the attributes discerning commonalities and themes of presence. Nursing presence is considered to be an essential state of holistic nursing as well as a core competency in contemporary nursing. Clarifying the significance of presence in nursing invites the prospect of additional evidence-based research that may place the intrinsic value of presence as a continuing theoretical foundation.