Nurses collaborate with clients and other professionals and are accountable for their own judgments and actions. Nursing as a profession responds to and seeks to influence emerging health care needs in an environment of change within a complex global community. Education for professional nursing occurs at the baccalaureate level and for advanced practice nursing at the master's level. Each person is viewed from a holistic perspective. People grow, develop, learn and change.
People have both rights and responsibilities for their health.
Persons have characteristic patterns of behavior and join together or are grouped together in aggregates as families, groups and communities. A person or group becomes a client of nursing when there is an actual or perceived need for nursing. Health is a dynamic human condition inclusive of wellness, illness and dying that is affected by the environment and capable of being influenced by nursing care. The goal of nursing is to enhance the client's health and ability to care for self, to help the client develop systems of support and to maintain or alter the environment to facilitate wellness efforts and a sense of well being. Nurses as ethical decision-makers use critical thinking, communication, therapeutic interventions and technology to influence health.