Nursing Theory Evaluation Paper

The caring, supportive, sympathetic features of nursing, is immeasurable. Theories are essential to have. They provide a description of what nurses do and give meaning and purpose. When nursing theories are developed this new knowledge can greatly impact the future of nursing practice (McCrae, 2012).

The application of nursing theories to the nursing care practice promotes the structure of care. It intensifies the importance of an individual in need and facilitates the environment of healing. By integrating the major nursing theories into the daily nursing routine in the hospitals or the community, and understanding their meaning, nursing profession flourishes as a unique science separate from the discipline of law. One of the theories looked at is humanbecoming by Rosemarie Rizzo Parse. As Smith & Parker, (2015) explains, humanbecoming nurses’ involvement in the care of the patient is influenced by the utmost importance that arise from the point of view of their patient at that particular time. The nurse then and recognizes the wishes, benefits and desires of the patient and prioritizes her care in such a way.

Dorothea Orem’s Self Care Model states, “Nursing care is required when an adult is unable to perform self-care sufficiently to sustain life, maintain health, recover from disease or injury, or cope with the effects of disease or injury” (Orem, 1991). Orem also takes into account that caregivers also need nursing care. Six concepts:

Dorothea Orem’s Self Care Model states, “Nursing care is required when an adult is unable to perform self-care sufficiently to sustain life, maintain health, recover from disease or injury, or cope with the effects of disease or injury” (Orem, 1991). Orem also takes into account that caregivers also need nursing care. Six concepts:

The theoretical basis for public and community nurses began in the nineteenth century with Florence Nightingale. Nightingale believed in the prevention and surveillance of diseases. She further believed that a disease was more prevalent in poor environments. She proved that good health was more prevalent with a good environment for instance providing adequate ventilation, clean water, warmth, light, and cleanliness during the Crimean War (Allender, Rector, & Warner, 2014).

One nursing theory that has influenced my values and goals as a nurse is Jean Watsons Theory of human caring: Transpersonal Caring as the Fulcrum. Watson believed every person needs an interconnection with others and caring promotes this need. Through caring, a nurse can help the patient have balance and harmony of mind, body, and soul (Cherry & Jacob, 2014).

However, Orem’s Self-Care Deficit Theory is more recommended for the acute-care setting, where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness. Orem focuses on finding the self-care deficit of the patient and providing the necessary care to promote his or her well-being. Whereas, Roy is concerned with the different stimuli that forces adaptation in order to achieve optimal health.

Nursing theory perspective Yvette Dolbee NSG/416 7/31/2017 Diane Balog Nursing Theory Perspective I often consider myself to be a follower of Nightingale’s environmental theory however, as my nursing has evolved towards more of an administrative position and away from direct patient care, I have found Orem’s theory to be more suited to my nursing practice. Orem’s “theoretical framework has served as a general blueprint, not only in the development of nursing knowledge through nursing research, but also as a basis for developing nursing practice and for organizing nursing practice from a nursing administration perspective in order to provide nursing to persons in healthcare institutions and community health programs.” (Clarke, Allison,

Nursing theory provides a resourceful and demanding organization of philosophies that venture a universal observation of care. By applying nursing theory in our daily care, nurses grow understanding pertinent to humanizing patients’ health condition. The four categories from the most abstract to the most specific are Metatheory, grand theory, middle range theory, and practice theory.

Gina, I am happy for you being a part of that inspiring story. Newman’s theory articulated well the natural tendency of nurses to merge into the patient’s life and his difficult situation. Interestingly, nurses have no time to pause and think what theory can we apply on our patients in a given situation. In my case, I rely on my experience, value, and belief system to guide my actions. In a way, many of these nursing theories were put into practice before their introduction. Nonetheless, acknowledging their value now directs the nursing practice consistently.

Nursing theory has become vital aspect of health promotion and health restoration to not only nurses, but people in many areas of healthcare. Nursing theory gives nurses and other healthcare professionals a background on how nursing was preformed when our ancestors, like Florence Nightingale, first began nursing. Nursing theories also help healthcare professionals to see how nursing and other areas in health care will progress further into the future. Although most theories are quite old, they are still relevant and used in everyday nursing to ensure quality care to each individual. Types of theories range from practice based theories, to needs theories, to interactional theories, and others. Each theory has one thing in common: they are important to people for different reasons. How significant each of them are, will depend on your individual view of what is most essential to nursing. One theory which I believe to be crucial to nursing in particular, is Dorothea Orem’s theory of self-care. With this paper, my goal is to thoroughly describe Orem’s theory; to show why it is important in order to progress nursing and all other healthcare practices further. Then I will describe how I as a student nurse plan on using the theory in my future practices as an RN, and what goals I hope to achieve in doing so.

According to the Arslanian, Hicks, Whall and Algase (2005) nursing theories have unique views. Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) not only focus on diagnosis and medical intervention but also considers family, environment and patient responses in their plan of care. This makes them different from other health care providers like physicians and physicians assistants (Arslanian et al., 2005). I agree that it is important for us as an APN to use theories to guide our own advanced practice because theory gives identification to nurses, and distinguishes nurses from other profession by its unique contribution to the clinical practice. Nursing is an autonomous profession (Kenny, 2013). Nursing theory provides various information to understand the patient

Dorothea E. Orem devoted her life to defining nursing and the nurse’s role in improving the patient’s overall health, which she coined the Self-Care Deficit Theory. Orem’s theory is quite a complex one, which can be simplified by identifying that it is three theories in one: self-care theory, self-care deficit theory and nursing systems theory. In 1959, as Orem first began the evolution of the Self-Care Deficit Theory, she defined the nurse’s role as another self. This nursing theory is the foundation for nursing as it actually defines the art of nursing, the actions that drive the nurse and the nurse’s provision of care through the nursing systems theory. To place in simplistic terms, Orem assumes that all humans desire to care for self. In the self-care theory, she states that individuals are meant to care for themselves and their basic needs by promoting life, health, development and well-being (Banfield, 2011). When something happens that does not allow the human to care for self, a deficit occurs. This deficit drives the need for specialized nursing care to restore the human’s health so they can resume self-care.

Dorothea Orem’s self-care deficit theory’s nursing goal is to assist individuals to meet all their self-care needs by teaching them with skillful healthy habits (Hood, 2014, p. 137). In order for nurses to provide the support needed by an individual, they must assess all their patients’ self-care requisites. As explained by Moore (2015), “Orem uses the self-care requisites as a basis for assessment [in] the nursing process.” These self-requisites are universal needs that arise due to illness and/or changes in developmental stages (Hood, 2014). Dennis (1997) described in detail Orem’s basic conditioning factors that must be assessed to gather sufficient information about the individual and about their ongoing and emerging self-care requisites. Orem’s basic conditioning factors include: age, gender, developmental state, health state, health care system, sociocultural/spiritual orientation, family systems, patterns of living, environment, and available resources (Dennis, 1997).

Orem’s Self-Care Theory lays the foundation to measure self-care maintenance, management, and confidence. The framework of Orem’s theory contributes an optimistic patient view to their own personal healthcare and the goal of nurses, and the independent function of their patients. The identification of nursing as a science and an art are identified as well as its boundaries, and serve as unique contributions to nursing. The research that Orem completed was designed to measure self-care deficits and the quality of life to help determine the correlation between both (Seed & Torkelson, 2012).