Changing the Paradigm in Nursing: from the Care Paradigm to the Islamic Paradigm

Nursing theorists have defined nursing knowledge within the framework of the governing philosophies. Nursing theories belonging to the modernist era were developed based on the principles of modernist philosophy. With criticisms about the negative consequences of modernism, nursing scientists decided to move from modernism to postmodernism and the care paradigm that originated from postmodernism. Expression of excessive criticism about the foundations of postmodernism shed doubt on the effectiveness of the care paradigm. The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of the biomedical and care paradigm on nursing and provide an alternative and monotheistic paradigm.

The present study is library-based. The books and articles related to the most important nursing philosophies and paradigms in the time range of 1950 to 2020 were searched on the national and international databases and examined using a descriptive analytical approach. The authors reported no conflict of interests.

One-dimensional view of and attention only to objective signs are among the criticisms of modernism and the biomedical paradigm, also, the lack of a solid standard of good or bad, the violation of the law of the community of contradictions by stating the acceptance of some truths in the world and the denial of general rules are among the criticisms of postmodernism and the care paradigm. The Islamic paradigm, while having the strengths of the last two paradigms, does not have their weaknesses.

Given the need to present a nursing paradigm based on the prevailing philosophy of any society, the Islamic paradigm is proposed as a way out of the challenges created by the current paradigm in nursing.