THEORY

That is nursing 101 for ya...learn your concepts, build on them, your NCLEX will depend on that later...

Any specific theories you are having issues with that we might help clarify?

Tait

Our school at the time I was there was into the "Roy Model". I was in nursing school, not taking philosophy. Why did we have to do all of this? It took me a long time to get over being angry that I had to learn this stuff. Even longer to figure out how it worked once I decided that I needed to learn this stuff to get through school. Some of my classmates would come in with 16 pages all tidy and packed full of information, listing 100's behaviours, their stimuli, goals and interventions. It was too much. I just didn't get it. I needed to keep it simple to understand what I was doing. I kept mine under 20 behaviours and kept it focused on 2-3 goals. I wasn't going to get an A, but it would get me through.

That was 12 years ago and more. I certainly don't use the Roy Model officially, but it is in the way I think through what is going on with a patient. What ever model you use, it will give you the structure to sort out all the information you get from a patient and make it into something that you can manage. Understanding that problems have reasons and having the reasons helps you to look for the behaviours that signal a problem will make you a better nurse in the long run.

I know you don't have a lot of time, but it might be easier to understand if you do up a care plan for yourself in the model that you are studying.

BEHAVIOURS: What are your behaviours right at this moment?

STIMULI: Why are you anxious? Too much to do and not enough time in the day to get it all done.

NURSING DIAGNOSIS Something like anxiety r/t increased workload.

INTERVENTIONS: what can you do about it right now (short term)-take a bath, have a cup of tea- and then what can you do about the longer range to decrease your anxiety (long-term goals) - get a cleaning service in to get all the housework done giving you more time to focus on school and family.

EVALUATION: Felling better already!!

This is all as an excercise and you will not pass if you hand this in as homework, but that is the simple version of what you will be doing. You may feel stressed and not know why, but if you lay it out in a workable fashion, then the solutions to the problems become easier to sort out.

Good luck.

By the way, my main excuse for not doing homework was housework. The house would be at it's cleanest when I was avoiding an assingment. If you can afford it, a cleaning service would be one of the best things you ever did for yourself and they are not as expensive as you think.