Is Integrative Science Necessary to Improve Nursing Practice?

Abstract

This article explores integrative science as a perspective for overcoming intellectual barriers between nurses’ valuing of the holistic person and the science and technology that drives advances in health care. Several meanings of integrative science are reflected in health science literature. One use of integrative science refers to comprehensive and unifying theories (or view-points) that draw together interrelated aspects of a field. Another use of integrative science pertains to efforts to formulate models that accommodate the special dualities that exist in studying humans. Integrative science as a perspective addresses overcoming intellectual separation of knowledge relevant to understanding of persons or populations by an open-ended sharing and juxtaposing of knowledge relevant to solving that problem. For nursing, integrative science may pose a threat to nursing knowledge. Failure to thrive, a nutritional and psychosocial phenomenon, is presented as an example of a topic manifesting the need for an integrative science perspective.