Concept Analysis - the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

Introduction

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language similarity is the (a) "equivalence," (b) "resemblance" and (c) corresponding "features" or characteristics" (2009). There are various ways of defining similarity the most common term shared is comparison. Accuracy and consistency are essential when providing patient care and it should be displayed within nursing practice, communication, and documentation. Institute of Medicine reports that there are over 98,000 deaths caused by preventable errors (1999). The purpose of this paper is to respond to a peer reviewed concept analysis article, describing the method of analysis, the steps of the process, results for each step and to apply the concept to a practice situation.

Concept Analysis

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) improves the exchange of patient data, accuracy, and quality of patient care. Poor communication and technology can impede a positive outcome for the patient. A core competence of nursing is documentation of patient's response to nursing interventions and effectively communicating the care given. In the article Concept Analysis of Similarity Applied to Nursing Diagnoses: Implications for Educators the author uses the Walker and Avant concept analysis of similarity. In nursing, concept analysis clarifies unclear concepts and gives a mean to common understanding within nursing practice. "The purpose of a concept analysis is to describe the concept well enough so that defining characteristics can be determined and used to distinguish "likeness or unlikeness" between concepts" (Walker & Avant, 2005, p. 64).

Wilson developed an 11 step process in 1963 that defined the concepts to improve communication and comprehension of the meanings of terms in scientific use (McEwen & Willis, 2011, p.53). Numerous nurses have used Wilson's process to build their own techniques, methods and strategies for concept development. Walker and Avant interpreted Wilson's process to make it clear for nurses in 1983. Three different approaches were described by the two; concept analysis, concepts synthesis, and concept derivation (McEwen & Willis, 2011, p.54).

Methodology

Concept analysis clarifies meaning of terms and defines concepts so that the audience and the writer share a common language. This method requires an eight step approach. The article analyzes similarity using Walker and Avant methodology giving a brief introduction about how information of the similarity sources were obtained, describing the aims and perspectives of similarity from a variety of domains. Furthermore, define the attributes that are found in the literature, along with the presentation and discussion of relevant cases. The origin, outcome, and pragmatic empirical referents are used to further clarify similarity, followed with nursing implications and from the results form a conclusion (Falan, 2010, p. 145).

Sources of Similarity Information

First, task the author did was to select the concept of similarity and searched numerous domains to understand similarity. Similarity domain is prevalent in geometry, business research, and music to name a few. Only available concept was one with mathematical computation and the aim was a philosophical inquiry.

Aims

Second, the direction of the concept analysis was to clarify the definition of similarity and take into considerations for measuring