[Transitional care in the course of nursing]

Abstract

The present paper addresses human beings' transitionary events which permeate their vital cycle, as well as the conductive conditions to the transition processes and their care relations. It focuses on the several distinguishing types of transition and their conceptualizations throughout the scope of transitional care. Such care is concerned with the features of the events which derive change, as well as the individual variables and the context interacting with those features, facilitating the understanding of the interaction process and assimilation of the change. From that conceptualization, it targets the development of nursing interventions facing the transitional processes in the light of nursing theories, which can be re-stated in transition terms. Due to the variety of focuses, transition is related to nursing care and it aims at the prevention and intervention for each specific case, providing nurses with an innovative focus of care. It points out that care is somehow tied up to each developmental stage, favouring maturity and growth in the search for a larger balance and stability. Care facing transition brings about answers to the valuing of the being.