Nursing Theories and Patient Care

Nursing Theories

• Guide nursing care to improve patient outcomes
• Provide a framework for nurses to understand the relationship between the patient, environment, health, and nursing care
• Indicate the direction of nursing development in the future
• Differentiate the focus of nursing from other professions

Roles of Nursing Theories

• Clinical Practice: Provide a framework for nurses to understand the relationship between the patient, environment, health, and nursing care
• Nursing Education: Foundation of nursing program, serves as the foundation for curriculum development, teaching methodologies, and others
• Nursing Research: Theoretical framework, guides research questions and hypotheses, and informs practice implications

Virginia Henderson

• Defined nursing as "the unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery"
• Focused on individual's ability to function independently as 14 components

Dorothea Orem

• Self-care theory, individuals perform on their own behalf to maintain life, health, and optimum level of functioning
• Ability to live life to the fullest with the capacity to maintain life through self-care

Code of Ethics and Professionalism

• Code of Ethics: guides professionals on how to approach problems
• Competencies and Professional License: must pass a national license examination to demonstrate qualification to practice nursing
• Autonomy and Independence of Practice: need to be recognized by other disciplines as having practitioners who practice nursing independently
• Professional Identity and Development: nurses are fully committed to the profession of nursing and dedicated to its future development

Professional Preparation

• Provide patient-centered care
• Work in interdisciplinary teams
• Employ EBP (Evidence-Based Practice)
• Apply quality improvement principles
• Utilize informatics

Code for Professional Nurse

• Provides service with respect for dignity of man, unrestricted by considerations of nationality, race, creed, color, or status
• Quality of a Nurse as a care provider: Caring, Communication Skill, Empathy, Attention to details, Problem-solving skill, Stamina, Patient advocacy, Willing to learn

Healthcare Delivery System

• Objective: enable all citizens to obtain healthcare services when needed, and the services must be cost-effective and meet certain established standards of quality
• Basic Components: Financing, Insurance, Delivery, Payment
• Financing: private-employer base, may cover spouse, children, and parents
• Insurance: determines the package of health services the insured individual entitled to receive
• Delivery: provision of healthcare services by various providers
• Payment: reimbursement to providers for service delivered, patient may need to pay small amount of money when seeing the physician