Contributor: Meghann Buyco
August 19, 2025

Author: Sister Marie Simone Roach

First Year Published: 1984

Major Concepts

• Compassion
• Competence
• Confidence
• Conscience
• Commitment
• Comportment

Typology – Conceptual framework

Description

Caring is a human mode of being, and it is a unique way of an individual’s being in the world. This theory emphasizes that caring is inherent to all of us as humans, emphasizing that everyone has the capacity to care. It is not merely an emotion or feeling but a total way of living. It involves being in a relationship with the universe, invested and engaged with the other (person, idea, thought, object).

The six C’s are referred to as attributes in caring:

• Compassion involves entering and immersing into the experience of others, recognizing their intrinsic worth, and having sensitivity to the pain, loss, and suffering.
• Competence entails having the knowledge and skills necessary to provide high-quality service that a responsibility or role demands.
• Confidence inspires trust within the relationship in which patients are able to rely that a nurse will act in their best interests.
• Conscience enables nurses to have a moral awareness of what is right and wrong, to be sensitive and informed, and to respond to something that matters.
• Commitment is described as a complex affective response in which one’s desires and one’s obligations converge. In other words, what one commits oneself to do coincides with what they want to do.
• Comportment encompasses professionalism, in which there is harmony in one’s beliefs and values with demeanour, dress, and language. One dresses appropriately and observes socially acceptable protocols.

Primary Sources:

• Roach, M. S. (1984). Caring: The human mode of being: Implications for nursing, a monograph. Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto.
• Roach, M. S. (1987). Caring from the heart: The Convergence of caring and spirituality. Paulist Press.
• Roach, M. S. (2002). Caring, the human mode of being: A blueprint for the health professions (2nd ed.). The Canadian Hospital Association Press. Also available here

About Sister Marie Simone Roach

Sister Marie Simone Roach (1922-2016) was a highly admired nurse educator, leader, ethicist, theologian, and scholar. She dedicated a lifetime of work to advancing nursing knowledge through the development and dissemination of philosophy and theory related to human caring. She was a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Martha of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. She attended St. Jospeh School of Nursing (Nova Scotia), St. Jospeh School of Nursing (Nova Scotia), St. Francis Xavier University (Nova Scotia) University of Toronto (Ottawa), Boston University (Massachusetts), and Catholic University (D.C.). She was the Chair of the Department of Nursing of St. Francis Xavier University.PageBlock