Nursing theory has long treated "person" and "human being" as interchangeable, reflecting philosophical traditions that prioritize autonomy and individualism. Thinkers such as John Locke distinguish the biological human organism from the person, defining personhood through inward-looking psychological capacities. This cognitive, individualistic model has shaped conventional nursing theories that frame the person as a self-contained unit. In contrast, African relational ontologies conceptualize personhood as a moral, communal, and developmental achievement. Traditions such as Ubuntu, Ukama, and Consciencism, and the writings of Mbiti, Menkiti, Gyekye, Imafidon, and Wiredu, emphasize that personhood is constituted through relationships, communal belonging, and progressive moral maturation. A human being is born with ontological potential, but personhood is conferred through participation in communal life and alignment with shared values. This paper introduces the Theory of Communal-Relational Person-Becoming, a nursing theory that integrates African relational ontologies to reinterpret the metaparadigm concepts. The theory reframes personhood as dynamic becoming, health as holistic harmony, and nursing as a communal, relational, and moral act. Its novelty lies in offering a nursing framework that explicitly contrasts Western psychological individualism with African relational personhood and systematically integrates African philosophies into nursing theory, thereby expanding the discipline's conceptual repertoire and addressing epistemic exclusions.
The discipline of nursing has entered a historical moment in which two profound forces converge: the global rise of digital platform labour and the resurgence of relational, communitarian ontologies rooted in African philosophy. Yet these forces are rarely theorised together, despite shaping the same discipline. This paper integrates African philosophical thoughts which conceptualise personhood as a dynamic, communal, and relational achievement, with ideas around platformized nursing, which explains how digital platforms restructure nursing labour, relationships, and professional identity through algorithmic governance and datafication. Through a digital-relational synthesis, the paper argues that platformization disrupts the communal and relational foundations of personhood and care, while simultaneously creating new socio-technical spaces in which relationality must be renegotiated. An integrated model, the Digital-Relational Nursing Framework is presented which offers a multilevel lens for understanding how nurses and patients become persons within increasingly digitalised health systems. This synthesis provides conceptual grounding for empirical research, ethical analysis, workforce policy, and curriculum reform aimed at safeguarding relational accountability and communal wellbeing in the digital era.
Depression is associated with greater odds of prevalent diabetes, with systemic inflammation contributing to a small but significant proportion of the observed association.
Samuel Akyirem, J. Okyere, Jonathan Bayuo et al.· Biological Research for Nurs...· 0 citations
By naming digital-relational harm, the paper reframes digital transformation as an ethical and relational challenge, not merely a technical one, and argues that safeguarding relational integrity must become a central concern in the design, governance, and evaluation of digital health systems.
Jonathan Bayuo· Nursing Ethics· 1 citation
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