Nursing Fundamentals and Theories

American Nursing Association (2003)

• Defines nursing as the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations.

Nursing Theories and Conceptual Framework

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

• Considered the first nursing theorist and earned the title "Nursing with a Lamp"
• Environmental Theory: emphasizes the importance of environmental factors in health and illness
• Five environmental factors:
  • Pure/fresh air
  • Pure water
  • Efficient drainage
  • Cleanliness
  • Light (direct sunlight)
• Deficiencies in these five factors produce lack of health or illness
• Stressed the importance of keeping the client warm, maintaining a noise-free environment, and attending the client's diet

Virginia Henderson

• The Nature of Nursing Model: conceptualizes the nurse's role as assisting sick or healthy individuals to gain independence in meeting the 14 Fundamental Needs
• 14 Fundamental Needs:
  • Breathing normally
  • Eating and drinking adequately
  • Eliminating body wastes
  • Moving and maintaining a desirable position
  • Sleeping and resting
  • Selecting suitable clothes
  • Maintaining body temperature
  • Keeping the body clean and well-groomed
  • Avoiding dangers and injuring others
  • Communicating with others
  • Worshipping according to one's faith
  • Working in such a way that one feels a sense of accomplishment
  • Participating in various recreation
  • Learning, discovering or satisfying the curiosity that leads to normal development and health

Faye Glenn Abdellah

• Patient-Centered Approaches to Nursing Model: identifies 21 nursing problems and defines nursing as a service to individuals and families
• Conceptualizes nursing as an art and science that molds the attitudes, intellectual competencies, and technical skills of the individual nurse into the desire and ability to help people, sick or well, and cope with their needs

Dorothy E. Johnson

• Behavioral System Model: each person as a behavioral system is composed of 7 subsystems:
  • Injective
  • Eliminative
  • Affiliative
  • Aggressive
  • Dependence
  • Achievement
  • Sexual and role identity

Imogene King

• Goal Attainment Theory: views nursing as an interaction process between patient and nurse that leads to goal attainment
• Patient has 3 interacting systems:
  • Operational system (individuals)
  • Interpersonal system (nurse-patient)
  • Social system (health care system)

Madeleine Leininger

• Transcultural Nursing Model (Cultural Care Diversity and Universality Theory): emphasizes that human caring, although universal, varies among cultures in its expressions, process, and patterns; it is largely culturally derived
• Presents 3 intervention modes:
  • Culture care preservation and maintenance
  • Culture care accommodation, negotiation or both
  • Culture care restructuring and re patterning

Myra Estrin Levine

• Four Conservation Principles: proposes principles concerned with the unity and integrity of the individuals
  • Conservation of energy
  • Conservation of structural integrity
  • Conservation of personal integrity
  • Conservation of social integrity

Betty Neuman

• Health Care System Model: asserts that nursing is a unique profession in the health care system