Nursing as the promotion of well-being: the client's experience.

An essential question of the discipline of nursing is: What do nurses do to promote the client's well-being? Using a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach to inquiry, this study explored the client's experience of nursing as the promotion of well-being, explicating in three distinct metathemes the meaning of well-being as transforming and nursing as caring. Based on this critical view of nursing, prospective directions for education, research and practice are suggested.