New definition outlines realistic quest for health, safety, wellness.
What’s a healthy nurse, and why is the definition important? A new, dynamic, and meaningful definition of a healthy nurse, built on the American Nurses Association’s (ANA’s) wellness work and research, helps inform health resources for nurses, programmatic offerings, and commercial products. It also outlines a realistic state of being for all nurses in your quest toward improved health, safety, and wellness.
On February 9, 2024, the ANA Board of Directors approved a new definition to describe what it means to be a healthy nurse: “A healthy nurse is one who prioritizes striving toward positive physical, mental, social, environmental, and professional well-being.”
This more contemporary definition replaces the version first introduced in 2013. The earlier definition consisted of a list of attributes, veered toward an impractical ideal, and didn’t concisely and accurately describe today’s healthy nurse.
In pursuit of evidence
The new definition reflects a culmination of several years’ work. In 2022, staff members from Healthy Nurse Healthy Nation™ (HNHN) noted that the previous lengthy healthy nurse definition no longer captured the essence of what nurses have already and continue to experience (hnhn.org). The earlier definition also didn’t adequately incorporate mental health. An update was needed.
HNHN team members conducted a preliminary review of literature pertaining to definitions of health and wellness. The HNHN advisory committee, a group of nurse leaders invested in nurse wellness and with subject matter expertise began to discuss and develop a working definition. The HNHN team consulted nurse researchers focused on nurse health, as well as other subject matter experts. HNHN also dedicated part of a wellness workshop to ascertaining nurses’ and other healthcare professionals’ thoughts on the developing definition. It became evident that more was needed to move forward with an evidence-based approach and definition. HNHN put out a call for a scholar-in-residence to perform a rigorous literature review and use a multimodal research approach to develop a more relevant definition.
Conducting research
The HNHN team selected a scholar-in-residence to perform a literature review and develop an updated definition according to her findings. The literature review included the search terms “nurs*” and “well*” or “well-being” from peer-reviewed articles published in English from 2020 through 2023. The scholar-in-residence used various databases, including CINAHL and MEDLINE, as well as hand searching. She narrowed down 3,000 initial results to 283 abstracts, then teased out overarching and synonymous themes from 43 studies read for full text.
The scholar-in-residence presented her findings as well as a draft definition to the HNHN team and advisory committee. The advisory committee reviewed the definition, and following comprehensive wordsmithing and discussion, voted on and passed the updated definition on December 4, 2023, paving the way for the ANA Board of Directors’ approval.
Dissemination and adoption
Now the real work begins—disseminating this definition to the more than 5 million RNs in the United States. HNHN needs your help. Please share this article with a colleague. Look for, like, comment on, and share ANA and HNHN social media posts on the new definition. Consider joining HNHN—it’s free and open to everyone. When presenting, posting, or writing about nurse wellness, include a blurb on the new definition. And consider this question: Does “healthy nurse” describe you? Remember, we’re all improving the nation’s health, one nurse at a time!
Holly Carpenter is senior policy advisor at ANA.
American Nurse Journal. 2024; 19(5). Doi: 10.51256/ANJ052431
