Space and Territory in Community Nursing Practice

Abstract

Daily practice in community nursing is determined by compliance with targets and the results of programs, without taking into account the fact that their success or failure depends, in part, on socio-spatial variables nurses are unfamiliar with. Nonetheless, these variables should be included if knowledge on community nursing is to be developed as part of the metaparadigmic concept of environment in the discipline of nursing. They also are necessary to design, implement and evaluate programs, and determine therapeutic relations with respect to care, by introducing the concepts of space and territory into everyday thinking about nursing practice, as analytical categories that contribute a series of methods and theories for understanding processes related to health-illness and care. These categories, together with theoretical thinking on the models used in nursing, contribute new tools that allow for planning activities particular to community work, as well as the use of techniques such as mapping and spatial analysis in health, which are essential elements for the establishment and distribution of health personnel, the development of community programs, and an explanation of the cause of collective processes for care.