Caring: dealing with a difficult concept.

The concept of caring is the focus of this paper, in which an attempt is made to clarify the meaning of caring in nursing using one method of concept analysis. The decision to complete an analysis on caring was made following a substantial review of the literature, from which a concise definition of the concept remained elusive. Concept analysis as described by Walker and Avant (1995) is utilised and this paper demonstrates the various steps involved in this approach.