Environment Environment represents the atmosphere of the client s world in which there is a constant exchange of matter, energy and information. The environment is viewed as exerting social, cultural and spiritual norms which influence the ways in which individuals behave. As the arena for human-development, the environment provides the opportunity for individuals to grow, change, and attain personal goals. As individuals move about their environments they are confronted with interpersonal, intrapersonal, and extrapersonal stimuli to which they must adapt. The environment, as a dynamic interplay of conditions, ideas, circumstance and events, both places demands upon and affects an individual s adaptive potential.
Environment is also contextual space in which nursing is requested, required, and provided.
Nursing Central to the dynamic of nursing is respect for the person as an open, interrelated system. The ethos of nursing springs from a belief that therapeutic intervention which affirms autonomy, self-determination, diversity, social interaction, and expression, enhances the adaptive potential of individuals, families, groups, and communities. Essential to therapeutic intervention is intellectual inquiry, critical thinking, and communication. Further, these elements, rooted in humanistic philosophy, scientific theories, intuitive ways of knowing, and traditions and values of the profession, form its basis. Since persons are enmeshed in a variety of social networks, nursing relationships are formed with individual s families, groups and communities.