NURSING THEORIES

Orem’s self-care deficit theory 

• Dorothea Orem’s Self-Care Deficit Theory describes nursing as the act of helping others within the  provision and management of self-care to take care of or improve human working at the house level of  effectiveness. It focuses on each person’s ability to perform self-care. Orem defines self-care as the  execution of activities that people trigger and act on in maintaining life, health, and well-being. 

Neuman’s theory 

• Betty Neuman’s Systems Model provides a comprehensive holistic and system-based approach to  nursing that contains an element of flexibility. The theory focuses on the response of the patient system  to actual or potential environmental stressors and the use of primary, secondary, and tertiary nursing  prevention intervention for retention, attainment, and maintenance of patient system wellness.  

• The major concepts of Neuman’s theory are content, which is the variables of the person in interaction  with the environment; basic structure or central core; degree to reaction; entropy, which is a process of  energy depletion and disorganization moving the client toward illness; flexible line of defense; normal  line of defense; line of resistance; input-output; negentropy, which is a process of energy conservation  that increases organization and complexity, moving the system toward stability or a higher degree of  wellness; open system; prevention as intervention; reconstitution; stability; stressors; wellness/illness;  and prevention.

Nightingale’s theory 

• Florence Nightingale’s philosophy and teachings emphasize that the nurse must use her brain, heart and hands to create healing environments to care for the patient’s body, mind and spirit. 

• Florence Nightingale’s environmental theory is based on five points, which she believed to be essential to obtain a healthy home, such as clean water and air, basic sanitation, cleanliness and light, as she believed that a healthy environment was fundamental for healing. 

Peplau’s theory 

• Hildegard E. Peplau is universally regarded as the mother of psychiatric nursing. Her theoretical and clinical work led to the development of the distinct specialty field of psychiatric nursing. Many believe Peplau’s work produced the greatest changes in nursing practice since Florence Nightingale. She coined the term psychodynamic nursing, describing how the nurse-patient relationship changes over time. 

• The need for a partnership between nurse and client is very substantial in nursing practice. This definitely helps nurses and healthcare providers develop more therapeutic interventions in the clinical setting.  Through these, Peplau developed her “Interpersonal Relations Theory” in 1952, mainly influenced by Henry Stack Sullivan, Percival Symonds, Abraham Maslow, and Neal Elgar Miller.

Henderson’s theory 

• Henderson states that individuals have basic health needs and require assistance to achieve health and independence or a peaceful death. According to her, an individual achieves wholeness by maintaining physiological and emotional balance. 

• She defined the patient as someone who needs nursing care but did not limit nursing to illness care. Her  theory presented the patient as a sum of parts with biopsychosocial needs, and the mind and body are  inseparable and interrelated.