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Module 4 - Nursing Theories
Module 4 - Nursing Theories
Module 4 - Nursing Theories
Angeles City
COLLEGE OF NURSING
NCM 0100
THEORETICAL FOUNDATION IN NURSING
1st Semester, A.Y. 2020-2021
MODULE 4
Different Views of Person, Health, Environment, and Nursing
Nursing Theories
Module Overview
The metaparadigm for nursing is a framework for the discipline that sets forth the
phenomena of interest and the propositions, principles, and methods of discipline. The
metaparadigm is very general and is intended to reflect agreement among the different
concepts in nursing practice. It is considered as the most abstract level of nursing
knowledge and closely mirrors beliefs held about nursing. The metaparadigm offers a
context for developing conceptual models and theories. Much of the theoretical work in
nursing focused on articulating relationships among the four major concepts: person,
environment, health, and nursing.
Different nursing theorists from different times and ages have specifically
contributed to Nursing Theories. Nursing theory was primarily used to develop and guide
nursing education in universities. Today, nursing theories are known to give direction and
purpose to nurse practitioners; it guides critical thinking and decision-making in clinical
nursing practice. Nursing theories ensure adequate and quality nursing delivery, and to
clarify and improve the status of Nursing as a profession.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this module, the student should be able to:
1. Provide appropriate evidence-based nursing care based on variety of theories and
standards relevant to health and healing
2. Ensure a working relationship with the client and/or support system based on patient
care competencies through safe and quality nursing care, communication,
collaboration and teamwork, and health education
3. Customize nursing interventions based on Philippine culture and values
Learning Objectives
At the end of the discussion, the students will be able to answers the following questions:
1. What is a nursing theory?
2. Who is Faye Glenn Abdellah? What are the 21 Nursing Problems? What are the five
steps to the problem-solving process? How do we use it in nursing practice today?
How did she define the metaparadigm in nursing?
3. Who is Virginia Henderson? What are the 14 Human Needs? What made her definition
of nursing become the universally accepted definition of what nursing is? How is it
different from Abdellah’s 21 Nursing Problems? How did she define the metaparadigm
in nursing?
4. Who is Lydia Hall? What is the Care, Core, Cure Model? Which of the three concepts
(care, core, cure) is the nurse’s primary responsibility? How did she define the
metaparadigm in nursing?
5. Who is Ernestine Wiedenbach? What is the Helping Art of Clinical Nursing? How
Environment - the external and internal surroundings that influence or affect the person
Grand theory -broad in scope and composed of concepts representing global and
extremely complex phenomena.
Health - a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity that is influenced by political, economic, socio-cultural,
and environmental factors
Middle-range theories -address more concrete and more narrowly defined phenomena or
have more concrete and narrower focus than a grand theory.
Nursing - the art and science of caring for individuals, families, groups, or community
Virginia Henderson
About the Author
Virginia Henderson was born on March 19, 1897 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Henderson’s interest in nursing evolved during World War I from her desire to help the
sick and wounded military personnel. She enrolled in the Army School of Nursing in
Washington D.C., and graduated in 1921. In 1932, she completed her B.S. degree and in
1934, her M.A. degree in nursing education at Columbia University Teachers College.
Henderson was the recipient of numerous recognitions for her outstanding contributions
to nursing. Her writings are far-reaching and have made an impact on nursing throughout
the world. In 1955, she worked with a Canadian nurse named Bertha Harmer to revise a
book entitled Textbook of the Principles and Practice of Nursing, where she gave her first
definition of nursing. Later in 1966, Henderson published another book entitled The
Nature of Nursing, and it is in this book where Henderson’s ultimate definition of nursing
was written. Henderson died at the age of 98 on November 30, 1996.
CONCEPTS:
1. Fourteen fundamental human needs
1. Breathe normally
2. Eat and drink adequately
3. Eliminate Body Waste
4. Move and maintain desirable posture
5. Sleep and rest
6. Select Suitable clothes
7. Maintain normal body temperature
8. Keep the body clean and well-groomed to protect the integument
9. Avoid dangers in the environment and avoid injuring others.
10. Communicate with others in expressing emotions, needs, fears, or opinions.
11. Worship according to one's faith.
12. Work in such a way that there is a sense of accomplishment
13. Play and participate in various forms of recreation.
14. Learn, discover, or satisfy the curiosity that leads to normal development and health
and use the available health facilities.
*1-9: physiological
10 & 14: psychological
11: spiritual and moral
12 & 13: occupation and recreation
2. Biophysiological concept
-biological knowledge is the basis to determine appropriate care needed to alleviate the
illness or injury.
3. Concept of culture
-learned from the family and other social groups.
4. Interaction-communication
-the ability to react and understand the patient's thoughts, feelings, and responses.
Lydia Hall
About the Author
Lydia Hall received her basic nursing education at York Hospital School of Nursing
in York, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 1927. She received her B.S. in Public Health
Nursing in 1937 and M.A. in teaching Natural Sciences in 1942 at Teachers College,
Columbia University in New York. Hall was the first director of the Loeb Center for Nursing
and Rehabilitation and continued in that position until her death in 1969. Her experience
in nursing spans the clinical, educational, research, and supervisory components.
CONCEPTS:
1. Care: The Body
-represents the nurturing component and is exclusive to nursing. It is concerned with
bodily care (e.g. biological functions such as eating, bathing, and dressing) and
opportunity for teaching-learning activities. When providing this care, the nurse’s goal is
the comfort of the patient. At this point, the nurse and patient create a therapeutic
relationship, and as it develops, the patient can share and explore feelings with the nurse.
CONCEPTS:
1. Central purpose
-It is also known as “commitment”. It is that which the nurse wants to accomplish; the
overall goal toward which she is striving; the mission she believes is hers to accomplish.
-The central purpose defines the quality of health she desires to affect or sustain in her
patient and specifies what she recognizes to be her special responsibility in caring for the
patient. This commitment is based on the individual nurse's philosophy. Philosophy of the
nurse motivates her to act, guides her thinking, and influences her decisions. It is unique
to each nurse and is expressed in her way of nursing.
2. Prescription
-It is a directive for activity that specifies both the nature of the action and the necessary
thought process. It indicates the action appropriate in implementing the basic concepts
and the kind of behavior needed to carry out those actions. These actions may be
voluntary or involuntary, where voluntary action is an intended response and involuntary
action is an unintended response.
b. the recipient
-it refers to the recipient of nursing actions. The recipient is vulnerable, dependent on
others, and risks losing individuality, dignity, worth, and autonomy.
c. the goal
-it refers to the desired outcome that the nurse wants to achieve. Identification of the
goal gives focus to the nurse’s action.
d. the means
-it refers to how the agent meets her goal. It includes skills, techniques, procedures,
and devices that may be used to meet the goal.
e. the framework
-it refers to the surroundings that influence reality. It consists of the human,
environmental, and organizational facilities that affect the nurse’s ability to obtain her
goal.
CONCEPTS:
1. Professional function of nursing
-a well-defined function of the profession should be clearly stated to prevent conflicts.
Nursing activity is professional only when it deliberately achieves the purpose of helping
the patient.
4. Nursing process
-includes identifying the needs of the patient, response of the nurse, and nursing action.
The nurse can only proceed in doing her actions when she has correctly validated her
thoughts about the patient’s behavior. The nursing action can be carried out in two ways:
a. automatic
-those actions decided upon for reasons other than the patient's immediate need. It most
likely fails to meet the needs of the patient, and is primarily concerned with carrying out
physician’s orders, routine patient care, and general principles for health.
b. deliberative
-those actions that ascertain and meet the needs of the patient. The following are criteria
for deliberative actions:
b.1. results from correct identification of patient needs by validation
b.2. the nurse explores the meaning of the action with the patient
b.3. the nurse validates the action’s effectiveness
5. Improvement
CONCEPTS:
1. Adaptation
-Levine defined adaptation as the process whereby the patient maintains integrity within
the realities of the environment; it is the result of interaction between the person and his
internal and external environment (Alligood, 2018). The physiological and behavioral
responses of each individual are different under different conditions. Therefore, it is
possible to anticipate certain kinds of reactions, but the individuality or uniqueness of
responses vary.
-Adaptation includes the following characteristics:
a. historicity - adaptation is a historical process, responses are based on past
experiences and genetic pattern
2. Conservation
-It is the product of adaptation. It describes the way complex systems are able to continue
to function even when severely challenged. It is through conservation that persons are
able to face challenges, adapt, and maintain their uniqueness (Masters, 2012). It focuses
on achieving a balance of energy supply and demand within the biological realities unique
to the individual (Tomey & Alligood, 2010).
-The goals of conservation model are achieved through interventions geared toward the
"Four Conservation Principles" (Masters, 2012):
a. Conservation of Energy
-the individual requires a balance of energy and a constant renewal of energy to maintain
life activities
3. Wholeness (Holism)
-wholeness emphasizes a sound, organic, progressive, mutuality between diversified
functions and parts within an entirety, the boundaries of which are open and fluent. It
exists when the interaction or constant adaptations to the environment permit ease.
Madeleine Leininger
About the Author
Madeleine Leininger was born in Nebraska in 1925. She began her nursing career
after she graduated with a diploma from St. Anthony’s School of Nursing in Denver,
Colorado. In 1950, she received a bachelor’s degree in biological science with a minor in
philosophy and humanistic studies from Benedictine College in Kansas. She then worked
as an instructor, staff nurse, and head nurse on a medical-surgical unit and opened a new
psychiatric unit as a director of nursing services in Nebraska. In 1954, Leininger received
a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing from Catholic University of America in
Washington, D.C. (Masters, 2012).
It was during her time in the University of Cincinnati that Leininger noticed a lack
of understanding among staff related to cultural factors influencing the behavior of
children. She observed differences in responses to care and treatments among children
from diverse cultural backgrounds. Later, Leininger taught the first course in transcultural
nursing at the University of Colorado in 1966 (Masters, 2012).
CONCEPTS:
1. Culture
-refers to the patterned lifeways, values, beliefs, norms, symbols, and practices of
individuals that are learned, shared, and usually transmitted from one generation to the
other (Alligood, 2018).
-it is learned by each generation through both formal and informal life experiences. The
practices of a particular culture often arise because of the group’s social and physical
environment. These practices and beliefs are adapted over time, but they remain constant
as long as they satisfy needs.
-the term culture awareness refers to an in-depth self-examination of one's own
background, recognizing biases and prejudices and assumptions about other people
2. Culture care
-the subjectively or objectively learned and transmitted values, beliefs, and patterned
ways of life that assist, support, or facilitate another individual to maintain well-being and
health or to deal with illness, handicaps, or death.
3. Transcultural nursing
-refers to a formal area of humanistic and scientific knowledge and practices focused on
holistic culture care and competencies to assist individuals or groups to maintain or regain
their health and to deal with disabilities or other human conditions in culturally congruent
and beneficial ways (Alligood, 2018).
-Leininger identified three modalities that guide nursing judgments, decisions, and actions
so that the nurse can provide culturally congruent care that is beneficial, satisfying, and
meaningful to the persons the nurse serves (Masters, 2012). These 3 modalities are:
a. Cultural care preservation or maintenance
-refers to those assistive, supportive, facilitative, or enabling professional actions
and decisions that help people of a particular culture to retain or maintain care
values and lifeways (Alligood, 2018)
-it retain and or preserve relevant care values so that clients can maintain their
well-being, recover from illness, or face handicaps and/or death
b. Cultural care accommodation or negotiation
-refers to assistive, supportive, facilitative, or enabling professional actions and
decisions that help people of a particular culture to adapt or negotiate with the
others for a beneficial or satisfying health outcome (Alligood, 2018)
-in providing transcultural nursing, the nurse should consider the following concepts:
a. Culturally congruent care
-care that fits the people's valued life patterns and set of meanings -which is
generated from the people themselves, rather than based on predetermined
criteria. It requires the nurse to assume the role of a learner of the client’s culture
and copartners with the client in defining care. It is also assumed that when
culturally based nursing care is beneficial and healthy, it contributes to the well-
being of the client; in contrast, when care is not culturally congruent, the client will
demonstrate signs of stress, noncompliance, cultural conflict, or ethical concerns.
-when planning nursing care for a patient, nurses must remember that the care that will
be provided must be culture specific. Oftentimes even the meticulously planned
intervention fails not because the nurse is incompetent, but simply because it is not culture
specific. The following steps can guide the nurse in providing a trans culturally competent
care:
A-dministration of medications must take into consideration some of the patient’s
beliefs and practices
Examples:
1. Catholics usually will fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday except for sick
patients
2. Muslims will fast during Ramadan
3. Jehovah’s witness-medications are acceptable to the extent necessary
B-e familiar with some diseases which are common in a specific race
Examples:
1. Africans- sickle cell anemia, hypertension
2. Asian- osteoporosis
3. Blacks- cervical cancer (female) prostate cancer(male)
4. Jewish- breast cancer
5. Whites- testicular cancer
Evaluation continues throughout the nursing process and should include feedback
from the client and family. Self-evaluation by the nurse is crucial as he or she increases
skills for interaction. The nurse should consider questions such as the following:
1. Am I open to understanding ways in which the client's values differ from mine?
2. Have I given sufficient attention to communicating with the client with limited
language skills?
3. Have I had a successful client's family in the nursing process?
4. Am I incorporating the client's traditional beliefs and practices into nursing therapies?
5. Is my therapeutic relationship with the client grounded on respect for the client
regardless of cultural differences?
CONCEPTS:
1. Health
-encompasses disease and non disease. It can be regarded as the evolving pattern of
the person and the environment. It is a process of developing awareness of self and
environment together with an increasing ability to perceive alternatives and respond in a
variety of ways (Alligood, 2018).
2. Pattern
-depicts the whole, and understanding of the meaning of all relationships at once.
Whatever manifests itself in a person’s life is the explication of the underlying pattern
within the person (Alligood, 2018).
-pattern recognition occurs within the observer. Although we may predict the next event
in a sequence on the basis of knowledge of the sequence, we cannot make such
predictions with certainty because additional information is needed. Newman suggests
that more of the pattern is revealed as the time frame is expanded.
3. Consciousness
-the informational capacity of the system and the ability of the system to interact with the
environment. It includes not only cognitive and affective awareness, such as thinking and
feeling, but also the interconnectedness of the entire system that includes biochemical
maintenance and growth processes (Alligood, 2018).
-as human beings develop, consciousness grows or expands; as consciousness
expands, the more it coexists with the universe.
Hildegard Peplau
About the Author
Hildegard Peplau was born in 1900 in Pennsylvania as the daughter of immigrant
parents. She graduated with a diploma from Pottstown Hospital School of Nursing in
1931. In 1943, she received a bachelor of arts degree in interpersonal psychology from
Bennington College, Vermont, followed by a master of arts degree in psychiatric nursing
from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1947. In 1953, she received an EdD in
curriculum development, also from Columbia University (Masters, 2012).
CONCEPTS:
1. Phases in nurse-patient relationships
a. Orientation phase
-This is the initial interaction between the nurse and the patient wherein the later has a
felt need and expresses the desire for personal assistance.
-in some cases, this need may not be readily identified or understood by the individuals
who are involved. It is in this phase that the nurse needs to assist the patient to realize
what is happening.
-at the end of this phase, the nurse and the patient concurrently strive to identify the
problem and are becoming more comfortable with one another
b. Working phase
-phase where perceptions and expectations of both the nurse and patient takes place.
Throughout this phase, both the patient and nurse must clarify each other’s perceptions
and expectations.
-the patient’s response to the nurse can be one of the three:
b.1. participate with and be interdependent with the nurse
b.2. be autonomous and independent from the nurse
b.3. be passive and dependent on the nurse
-throughout this phase, the patient works collaboratively with the nurse to meet
challenges and work toward maximum health. Thus, the nurse aids the patient in using
services to help solve the problem.
c. Termination phase
-this is where the nurse and the patient terminate their therapeutic relationship as the
patient’s needs have already been met by the collaborative efforts between the nurse and
the patient.
-the patient becomes independent from the nurse.
-occurs only with the successful completion of the previous phases.
2. Nursing roles
-Peplau originally described these roles that emerge during the phases of the nurse-
patient relationship (Masters, 2012):
b. Counselor
-this role strengthens the nurse-patient relationship as the nurse becomes a listening
friend, an understanding family member, and someone who gives sound and empathic
advises
c. Leader
-one who carries out the process of initiation and maintenance of group goals through
interaction
d. Resource person
-the nurse provides specific answers to questions, especially health information, and
interprets the treatment or medical plan of care
e. Surrogate
-one who takes the place of another
f. Technical expert
-the nurse provides physical care using clinical skills
3. Pattern integration
-identification of patterns within the interpersonal relationship between two or more
persons that link or bind them and enable them to transform energy into patterns of action
that bring satisfaction or security in the face of a recurring problem. Four types of
integrating patterns are possible (Masters, 2012).
a. Complementary
-occurs when the behavior of one person fits with and complements the behavior of the
other
b. Mutual
-occurs when the same or similar behaviors are used by both persons
c. Alternating
-occurs when different behaviors used by two persons alternate between the two persons
d. Antagonistic
-occurs if the behaviors of two persons do not fit but the relationship continues
Joyce Travelbee
About the Author
She postulated the Interpersonal Aspects of Nursing Model. She advocated the
goal of nursing individuals or family in preventing or coping with illness, regaining health,
finding meaning in illness, or maintaining maximal degree of health.
She further viewed that interpersonal process is a human-to-human relationship
formed during illness and “experience of suffering.” She believed that a person is a
unique, irreplaceable individual who is in a continuous process of becoming, evolving and
changing.
CONCEPTS:
1. Suffering
-"An experience that varies in intensity, duration and depth ... a feeling of unease, ranging
from mild, transient mental, physical or mental discomfort to extreme pain and extreme
tortured ..."
2. Meaning
-Meaning is the reason as oneself attributes
3. Nursing
-is to help man to find meaning in the experience of illness and suffering; has a
responsibility to help individuals and their families to find meaning. The nurses' spiritual
and ethical choices, and perceptions of illness and suffering, is crucial to helping to find
meaning.
4. Hope
-Nurse's job is to help the patient to maintain hope and avoid hopelessness.
-Hope is a faith that can and will be changed that would bring something better with it.
-Hope's core lies in a fundamental trust in the outside world, and a belief that others will
help someone when you need it.
-Six important factors characteristics of hope are:
a. It is strongly associated with dependence on other people.
b. It is future oriented.
c. It is linked to elections from several alternatives or escape routes out of its situation.
d. The desire to possess any object or condition, to complete a task or have an
experience.
e. Confidence that others will be there for one when you need them.
5. Communications
-"a strict necessity for good nursing care"
In her human-to-human relationship model, the nurse and the patient undergo the
following series of interactional phases:
a. Original Encounter- this is described as the first impression by the nurse of the
sick person and viceversa the nurse and patient see each other in stereotyped or
traditional roles.
b. Emerging Identities- this phase is described by the nurse and patient perceiving
each other as unique individuals. At this time, the link of relationship begins to form.
d. Sympathy- It happens when the nurse wants to lessen the cause of the patient’s
suffering. It goes beyond empathy. The nurse at this time should use a disciplined
intellectual approach together with therapeutic use of self to make helpful nursing
actions.
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