A Practice Theory Approach to Understanding the Interdependency of Nursing Practice and the Environment: Implications for Nurse-Led Care Delivery Models

Nursing has a rich knowledge base with which to develop care models that can transform the ways health is promoted and valued. However, theory linking the environment domain of the nursing metaparadigm with the real-world environments where nurses practice and patients experience their health care is tenuous. Practice theory is used to foreground the generative role of nursing practice in producing environments of care, providing the basis for a metaparadigm relational proposition explicitly linking nursing practice and environment metaparadigm domains. A theoretical and empirical focus on the significance of nursing practice dynamics in producing environments of care that promote health and healing will strengthen present and future nursing care models.