Nursing theory

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jun 17, 2009

did you try looking up the word theory in a regular dictionary to help you out here? its basic definition is an idea of the way to do something; a statement of principles involved. from that i can surmise that your foundations of nursing class is teaching you principles of nursing practice or how we practice nursing. now, they can get all collegiate on you and start having you study all kinds of nursing theories that were put forward by different nurses over the years, but they could also just be introducing you to other basic theories of nursing care such as aseptic technique, the nursing process and that sort of thing. if you have a current copy of taber's cyclopedic medical dictionary you will find a listing of the major nursing theorists and synopses of these nursing theories in the appendix.

some nursing programs require students to submit all their written clinical work to follow the theory of one or more of the major nursing theorists. marjory gordon's functional needs theory is commonly followed for doing the initial assessment of patients. when i was in my bsn program we had specific requirements and had an entire 10 week class in which we had to read the works of two men (selye and antonovsky) so we knew exactly what their theories were and how we were to use their theories in all future papers we would be writing in the nursing program. if we ever submitted a paper or care plan in which we did not assess our patients using and applying the theoretical framework of these two men (selye's stress theory and antonovsky's general resistance resources) we got a failing mark. you only did that once.

dana88daisy · Jun 18, 2009

Thank you very much for your reply....

So, am I correct in defining nursing theory as we look at historical nurses and practices as the way they approached treating their patient? Whether it be environment, diet, comfort, etc.....is that an example of theory....and if someone were to ask you why is it important that we understand theory....how would you answer? I answered "It is important that we understand where we came from to understand where we are headed and what things we can take with us for the betterment of our patients?" Was that way off?

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jun 18, 2009

if someone were to ask you why is it important that we understand theory....how would you answer?

the way we practice nursing today is defined by many of the nursing theorists. (read some of what these theorists have said in taber's.) because of nightingale we now pay attention to and practice infection control. because of orem we use the nursing process. because of people like roper we pay attention to and give priority to adls. gordon paved the way to using nursing diagnosis. moorhouse and her associates continue in that vein by showing how computers can be utilized in merging nursing outcomes and interventions with nursing diagnoses.

llg, PhD, RN · Jun 18, 2009

You're on the right track, dana98daisy. Theories are simply the "structures" we use to organize our thoughts about something. Over the years, people have organized their thoughts about nursing in many different ways.

Some theories are "better" than others or "more suited to your particular job in nursing" because some theorists are better thinkers than others -- and because the people working in different settings in different times think differently.

One word of caution: Don't fall into the trap of thinking about theory only as history. We still use a lot of the ideas first articulated by those "old" theorists. And there is a lot of research based on those theories that is still current and relevant. Contemporaty researchers still use some of the ideas from some of the older frameworks because they are good frameworks and have stood the test of time. Finally, there are also contemporary theorists. Scholars of today continue to develop new frameworks (theories) and further develop the old ones. Nursing's theoretical foundation is not "done" -- it is continually evolving as contemporary nurses continue to have the need to organize their thoughts.