The Complexity Conundrum: Nursing Interventions for Complex Health Problems

Beginning of article

INTRODUCTION

What is nursing if not complex? Nurses and nursing exist and operate not in isolation but in complex contexts and as complex parts of complex health care systems. Both are focused on caring for patients or clients with complex health problems, which can be addressed through complex, multi-component interventions. With these multiple facets of complexity, nursing is not then only complicated, but is the quintessential complex intervention (Richards & Borglin, 2011).

COMPLEX INTERVENTIONS

Yet, it is easy to fall into vague, circular and even nihilistic positions when describing and researching nursing's many layers of complexity. Though arguments for …