Persons have the capacity for health and well-being within the context of knowledge, ability, and volition. God made persons capable of change so as to achieve and maintain health. Each person perceives health uniquely, according to a personal, cultural, and historical context. The environment is the total context in which persons exist. Environment encompasses the physical, ecological, social, and world-view factors that influence persons' perceptions and interactions in regard to health.
Professional nursing is both a science and an art.
The essence of nursing, as a science and an art, is care. The goal of the professional nurse is to interact with another, through a trusting, helping relationship, to improve or maintain a favorable healthy condition for life or a peaceful death. Nursing, as a science, focuses on individual and family responses to actual or potential health problems. The uniqueness of professional nursing is found in the synthesis of the basic natural and social sciences as applied to these health responses. The art of nursing involves the weaving of caring components into strategies that uniquely facilitate a person's health.