What is a Concept Analysis?

Graduate school means a lot of studying about the phenomena or concepts underlying nursing practice. One of these concepts may be interesting to you to the point that you may want to study it for your thesis or dissertation or for your capstone project. One of the ways that faculty guide you through a deeper understanding of your particular concept of interest is to have you engage in a formal method called concept analysis. This post will define terms and describe the purpose of a concept analysis.

What is a Concept Analysis?
A concept analysis, basically, is a deep examination of a phenomenon of interest – a deep dive, if you will. Other terms that convey a similar meaning include concept clarification or creating conceptual meaning (Chinn & Kramer, 1991). A concept analysis is a “limited exploration … investigat[ing] ‘what is’ rather than ‘what ought to be’” (Barnum, 1990, p. 101).

The breakdown of the critical elements of a concept are likened to the deconstruction of the concept and then a rebuilding into a coherent whole (Meleis as cited in Bousso, Poles, & Monteiro da Cruz, 2013).

In nursing, phenomena of interest would be anything to do with the nursing metaparadigm concepts: Nursing, Person, Health, and Environment. Phenomena are described by concepts or constructs.