Self-Awareness in Nursing

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The Psychosocial Concept of Self-Awareness Nursing Student Self-awareness is an important psychosocial factor in relationships with ourselves and with other people. Self-awareness is implicated in many different settings, however one particular setting is in the nursing profession. As nurses, self-awareness can affect how a person sees herself, her work environment, and how a nurse might interact with her patients. Indeed, self-awareness in linked to leadership strength and emotional competence, both of which are important tools to a practicing nurse. Self-awareness is also an important factor in mental health/illness. Mental health/illness is more than a clinical or hospital implication but it is a state of being that effects everyone regardless if you are the patient or the one providing care. As nurses that provide health care, we must realize our own strengths and weaknesses by being self-aware and therefore increase our knowledge in providing care. Definitions Self-awareness is considered a component in emotional intelligence. It can be defined as the understanding of emotions and the recognizing of emotions as they happen and being able to identify between the different emotions that do occur in a given situation (Doas, 2012). In fact, impaired self-awareness is defined as not having insight or anosognosia (Medley & Powell, 2010) or lacking the ability to correctly interpret one’s actions and to understand the impact of those actions in the functioning real world (Spikeman & Naalt, 2010). By these definitions, it is clear how vital self-awareness is in the state of well being and in professional relationships. Review of Literature Since self-awareness covers and influences many aspects of life, the selection of the following literature focuses on self-awareness in relation to the development of self-awareness, self-awareness in emotional
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