Therefore, a sound liberal and professional education is requisite to understanding the complexity of responses. The need to improve human health and patient care is the stimulus for research into nursing practice. Professional nurses are committed to the overall goal of health promotion, helping people of all ages to attain, maintain, and regain their health, and enhancing the quality of their lives. Dedicated to the care and nurturing of the sick and well in order to help them achieve maximum human functioning, nurses assist people in achieving and maintaining a healthy state, meeting their basic needs, adapting to changes in their health status, recovering from illness, and dying with dignity. Humanistic, ethical, and scientific principles drawn from nursing science and other fields form the theoretical base of nursing care for individuals, families, and groups.
All people have the right to access health care.
Individuals, families, and communities retain responsibility for their own health and the right to make decisions regarding health care. People are complex organisms, and human behavior and biological functioning are a result of the interaction between individuals and their environment. Humans are endowed with hereditary qualities that may be influenced in temporary or permanent ways by the interaction with others and the environment. Each person possesses strengths and limitations as a result of the interaction of hereditary and environmental factors and these, in turn, create the biological and behavioral potential. Scientific principles related to the interplay of the mind, body, and spirit form the basis of our understanding of health and illness.