Dorothea Orem was a pioneering nursing theorist recognized for developing the self-care deficit nursing theory. She had a varied nursing background and education. Her theory focused on patients being able to perform self-care independently with nursing assistance for any deficits. The theory's concepts of person, health, environment, and nursing demonstrate Orem's holistic approach. When applied, the theory has significant implications for nursing practice, education, and research. Orem's self-care deficit theory remains influential in nursing today.
Dorothea Orem was a pioneering nursing theorist recognized for developing the self-care deficit nursing theory. She had a varied nursing background and education. Her theory focused on patients being able to perform self-care independently with nursing assistance for any deficits. The theory's concepts of person, health, environment, and nursing demonstrate Orem's holistic approach. When applied, the theory has significant implications for nursing practice, education, and research. Orem's self-care deficit theory remains influential in nursing today.
Dorothea Orem was a pioneering nursing theorist recognized for developing the self-care deficit nursing theory. She had a varied nursing background and education. Her theory focused on patients being able to perform self-care independently with nursing assistance for any deficits. The theory's concepts of person, health, environment, and nursing demonstrate Orem's holistic approach. When applied, the theory has significant implications for nursing practice, education, and research. Orem's self-care deficit theory remains influential in nursing today.
Courtney Sack, George Shepherd, Rachael Nitz, Hannah Schnelle
SUMMARY
Dorothea Orem was a nursing theorist, recognized for her self-care deficit nursing theory. The foundation of her theory was built on her educational background as well as the variety of areas that she specialized in. When her theory was developed it consisted of a multitude of concepts and propositions to clearly articulate her main focus of a patient being able to perform self-care and live independently with the care of a nurse. The paradigms person, health, environment/situation, and nursing in Orems theory clearly demonstrate her holistic approach to nursing care. When put into practice, the self-care deficit theory has huge implications on nursing practice, education, and research. Orems self-care deficit theory has become a foundational theory used in nursing practice and continues to impact nursing care today. EDUCATION AND SPECIALTIES Dorothea Elizabeth Orem (1914 June 22, 2007) received her nursing education in Washington, D.C. at the Providence Hospital School of Nursing. Orem had earned her diploma of nursing in the 1930s. She pursued further education and "completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in the Catholic University of America in 1939 and in 1946, she received her Master of Science degree in Nursing Education" ("Biography of Dorothea Orem", n.d., para.1) . After receiving her advanced degrees, she worked at a few hospitals and universities. Her practice background included working as a staff nurse, private duty nurse, nurse educator and administrator and nurse consultant ("Name of Theorist", 2011). Orem had "primarily focused on teaching, research, and administration" ("Dorothea Orem Collection," n.d.). Orem began working in the hospital as an operating room nurse, private duty nursing, medical- surgical units, hospital staff nursing on the pediatric floor, as a supervisor in the emergency room, and as a teacher of biological science (Biography of Dorothea Orem, 2014). The variety of work she dealt with allowed her to be well rounded when she began her work on the self-care deficit theory. Before pursuing work on her theory, she practiced administration by holding directorship of the nursing school and department of nursing in Detroit at Providence Hospital from 1940 to 1949. From there she moved to Indiana working at Indiana State Board of Health in the Division of Hospital and Institutional Services. It was during this time that Dorothea Orem began to develop her definition of nursing practice through having the goal to improve the quality of nursing practice (Biography of Dorothea Orem, 2014). After moving to Washington D.C. in 1957, Orem took a position as a curriculum consultant for the Office of Education, US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Here she further developed her definition of nursing practice by working on projects to upgrade the current practical nurse training. From this work came the development in 1959 of the Guides for Developing Curricula for the Education of Practical Nurses (Biography of Dorothea Orem, 2014). This was her introduction to her self-care framework describing its basic ideas. During that year Orem went back to the Catholic University of America, but this time as an assistant professor of nursing education. Later this turned into an associate professor of nursing education and serving as a dean at their School of Nursing (Biography of Dorothea Orem, 2014). After leaving CUA, Orem started her own consulting firm in 1970. As Orems experience nursing had furthered, her theory of self-care had also advanced. In 1971 she published her first book Nursing: Concepts of Practice. In 1985, Orem expanded on her self-care framework establishing the three theories within the overall structure. Because of her work and contribution to nursing, Orem received a multitude of Honorary Doctorates from various colleges beginning in 1976 and ending in 1998(Biography of Dorothea Orem, 2014). Dorothea Orem served in a multitude of capacities over her nursing career. Throughout her years as a nurse there was never a point where she stopped learning or specializing her care. This well roundedness enabled her to develop the self-care deficit theory of nursing that is commonly used in the healthcare practice setting today. NURSING THEORY, CONCEPTS, AND PROPOSITIONS The main point of Dorothea Orems theory is to nurse the patient until he or she is able to perform self-care and live independently. She believed that individuals "should be self-reliant and responsible for their own care and others in their family needing care" ("Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory", 2012). Orems theory is divided into three constituents: self-care, nursing system, and self-care deficit. The self-care factor stresses the need for the individual to perform life-sustaining activities on his or her own. The individual must develop the ability to perform those activities. In performing self-care, the individual encounters three categories regarding self-care: universal, developmental, and health deviation. Universal self-care involves all "life processes and the maintenance of the integrity of human structure and functioning" ("Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory", 2012). Developmental self-care involves transitions in ones life. Such transitions include: moving to a new state or country, adjusting to a new culture, and aging. Health deviation involves performing self-care actions in response to abnormal conditions such as injury, illness, and disabilities. The concepts of Orems theory include: nursing, health, the human being, the nursing client, environment, the nursing problem, nursing therapeutics, and the nursing process. To Orem, nursing is an art that is practiced to promote the patients health and therefore, the patients capability to carry out self-care. Health is the condition of optimal psychosocial and physiological integrity. The human being is "conceptualized as a total being with universal, developmental needs and [is] capable of continuous self-care" ("Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory", 2012). Through Orem's theory, human beings are distinguished "in terms of their capacity to: reflect upon themselves and their environment, symbolize what they experience, [and] use symbolize creations in thinking, communicating, and guiding efforts to" produce benefits for themselves and others ("Dorothea Orem: Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory", n.d., para.3). The nursing client is the patient; he or she is affected by a health problem that results in limited self-care being performed. When self-care abilities are compromised, the nursing client is the main focus of the nurse. The environment is the totality of the outside factors that can affect the human being and the nursing client. The nursing problem is described as self-care deficits that are rooted in universal, health deviation, and developmental factors. Nursing therapeutics comprise of "deliberate, systematic, [sic] and purposeful action" ("Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory", 2012). Lastly, the nursing process is expressed as a standardized system that is utilized by nurses to determine the health needs of the patient, the plan of care to meet those needs, the implementation of nursing interventions, and the success of those interventions. The nursing systems factor explains "how the patient's self-care needs will met by the nurse, the patient, or both" ("Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory", 2012). Depending on the needs of the individual patient, the nurse can completely (wholly compensatory system) or partially (partially compensatory system) assist the patient. Moreover, another important part of the nursing systems factor is the supportive educative system, in which the nurse supports the patient by educating him or her about positive health behaviors and potential health risks. The self-care deficit factor explains when nursing care is required. When the patient is fully or partially unable to carry out adequate self-care, the nurse must intervene through nursing acts, guidance, positive environmental manipulation, dissemination of knowledge, and support. Her theory proposes that people, as individuals, are to be responsible for their own care and that people should assume a self-reliant lifestyle. Orem assumed that nursing revolves around the interaction between two or more individuals. If an individual is to prevent illness, he or she must meet the demands of self-care. To meet those demands, the individual must obtain "knowledge of potential health problems" ("Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory", 2012). Additionally, knowledge of dependent and self-regulated behaviors is ascertained within the context of sociocultural context. METAPARADIGM Each nursing theory has four paradigms that include: person, health, environment/situation, and nursing. In Dorothea Orems Self Care Deficit Theory, the person is the individual patient that a nurse is caring for. She states that each persons ability to function does not include just the physical aspect but also the psychological, interpersonal, and social as well. She defines a human as a being that has the ability to "reflect, symbolize, and use symbols" (currentnursing.com). Orem also states that self-care is not a born instinct in humans but that it is influenced by many factors in a persons life. In this way, she believes that humans are set apart from other species because we have the ability to learn and adapt and develop. While going through the different developmental stages a persons beliefs about health are also apt to change and develop, she says. Health can have various definitions from person to person. According to Dorothea Orem, health does not only mean not being sick, but health is the ability to completely care for oneself. She considers health to be when self-care demands are not more than the resources or abilities a person has to meet those demands. Self-care is defined by Orem as the performance or practice of activities that individuals initiate and perform on their own behalf to maintain life, health, and well-being (George, pg. 115). This theorist also agrees that health includes preventative care. Orem says that the environment includes conditioning factors. These conditioning factors are defined as factors that can influence the self-care demand and the self-care agency. Dorothea Orem states that there are many important components of nursing. The most important to her included the art and prudence of nursing, nursing as a service, role theory related to nursing, and technologies in nursing (George, pg. 121). Since she defines health as the ability to care for oneself, nursing is defined by Orem as the care that is needed when there is a self-care deficit or a person can no longer provide self- care. Nursing is provided for children when their caregiver cannot provide adequate care. Nursing is provided if the capacity to provide care is less than that what is needed for an identified self-care demand (George, pg. 117). Nursing may also be needed even when the ability to care for one self is sufficient if new teaching is needed or it is predicted that soon self-care demands will be larger than self-care abilities. According to Orem, a nurse can help in five ways: Doing for another, guiding and directing, providing physical or psychological support, providing/maintaining an environment that supports personal development, and teaching (George, pg. 117). The goal of all of these types of helping is to get the patient to be able to perform self-care according to Orem. THEORY'S IMPLICATION TO NURSING PRACTICE, EDUCATION, AND RESEARCH Orems Self-care deficit nursing theory is used in structuring the nursing process, education, and research. Instead of the usual nursing process that consists of assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation, Orem uses characteristics of her theory for a nursing process that consists of diagnosis and prescription, designs for regulatory operation, and production and management of nursing systems (George, p. 123). In the first step, nursing diagnosis and prescription, a nurse collects assessment data and determines the clients self-care agency and the therapeutic self-care demand. This step is important in order to determine why nursing care is needed. Assessment data has six areas it is written down in, the first being the persons health status, then the physicians perspective of the persons health, the patients perspective of his or her own health, the health goals, the patients requirements for self-care, and last his/her ability to perform self-care (George, p. 127- 128). While completing this first step in Orems nursing process, the nurse needs to answer certain questions related to the theory such as What is the patients therapeutic care demand? Does the patient have a deficit for engaging in self-care to meet the therapeutic self-care demand? If so, what is its nature and the reasons for its existence? Should the patient be helped to refrain from engagement in self-care or to protect already developed self-care capabilities for therapeutic purposes? What is the patients potential for engaging in self-care at a future time period? (George, p. 128). An example that is given in Nursing Theories: The Base for Professional Nursing Practice is that assessment includes basic conditioning factors such as age, race, gender, height, universal self-care factors such as smoking 1.5 packs of cigarettes a day, not exercising, and frequently eating fast food, developmental self-care factors such as working 12 hour days, health deviation factors such as vital signs, family history, and potential for disease, medical problem and plan such as a diagnosis of obesity, decreasing or stopping smoking, and decrease cholesterol intake, and self-care deficits such as difference in a healthy lifestyle and the lifestyle that the patient is living (George, p. 126). In Orems second step of her nursing process, designs for regulatory operation, a nurse designs a nursing system that is used in planning ways to help a patient. The system that the nurse designs can either be wholly compensatory, partly compensatory, or supportive-educative (George, p. 128) and includes nurse and patient roles in relation to which self-care tasks will be performed when modifying the therapeutic self-care demands, controlling the implementation of self-care agency, shielding the already developed powers of self-care agency, and assisting with new developments in self-care agency, (George, p. 123). This section includes the outcomes and plans for the given diagnosis related to self-care. The third step, production/management of nursing systems, is about nurses helping his or her patient to meet unmet and prescribed goals of therapeutic self-care and to then help the patient carry out these self-care goals (George, p. 123). During this stage, the nurse has ten tasks that s/he must do including assisting the client with their self-care tasks, coordinating the task performance with other components of health care, helping the patient, the family, and others to use daily living activities that are satisfying to the patients interests, guide, direct, and support patients with their self-care, stimulate patients interests in self-care activities and abilities, support and guide patients in learning self-care activities, support and guide the patient if s/he gets sick and needs to adapt ways of self-care activities, monitor patients and assist the patient to monitor him/herself to see if the self-care performance was effective, to make judgments about the sufficiency and efficiency of self-care, and lastly, to make judgments on whether the nurses plan helped with self-care ability or hindered (George, p. 124). The nurse can modify goals if needed or continue the goal to ensure self-care activities are carried out. Not only does the nurse need to help the patient be able to perform self-care tasks, but the nurse needs to teach the patient on how to be able to identify the ability to effectively carry out a self-care tasks and ability. This step includes evaluation in which the nurse and patient work together to determine if implementation of the goals have worked or not. A purpose of Orems self-care theory in nursing practice is to encourage a nurses patients to perform self-care activities. A nurse needs to educate his or her patient on ways to be able to do activities of daily living, going to therapy, doing exercises, and gaining strength. This theory is used in practice to determine a patient's self-care abilities and if there are more demands than abilities, nursing care and practice is necessary (George, p. 117). If the patient is not able to care for him/herself biologically, psychologically developmentally, or socially, then nursing care is necessary (Potter, Perry, Stockert, Hall, p. 45).When nursing practice is necessary for a patient, self-care needs need to be supported by a nurse through systems. There are three systems as stated before, wholly compensatory, partly compensatory, and supportive-educative. A system is considered wholly compensatory when the nurse performs self-care operations because the patient has a total lack of ability to perform self-care activities. A system is partial compensatory if a patient can perform some self-care activities, and a system is supportive-educative when the patient can perform all self-care activities and is working on developing self-care (The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, p. 21). According to Nursing Theories: The Base for Professional Nursing Practice, in the wholly compensatory system, the nurse "accomplishes patient's therapeutic self-care, compensates for patient's ability to engage in self-care, and supports and protects the patient" (George, p. 119.) In partly compensatory, the nurse "performs some self-care mesasures for patient, compensates for self-care limitations of patient, assists patient as required, and regulates self-care agency," while the patient "performs some self-care measures, regulates self-care agency, and accepts care and assistance from nurse," (George, p. 119). In supportive-educative, the patient "accomplishes self-care and regulates the exercise and development of self-care agency," while the nurse also "regulates the exercise and development of self-care agency," (George, p. 119). The nurse and patient work together in all of the systems to ensure that self-care activities are performed successfully. Dorothea Orem's theory of self-care deficit can be applied in research. According to Nursing Theories: The Base for Professional Nursing Practice, "Orem's theory is the most readily applied theories," (George, p. 132). George also writes that out of 143 journal articles found on the internet about Orem's theory, 66 tested the relationships found in her theory. The rest of the articles used Orem's definition of self-care or her self-care framework (George, p. 132). Orem's theory is used by other agencies to make Self-as-Carer Inventory, Community Care Deficit Nursing Model, Assessment of Self-Care Agency, and Self-Care Agency Instrument (George, p. 132). Not only is this theory used in research, but it is used every day by nurses when taking care of his/her patient. It is used in education in nursing schools when learning about caring for a patient and looking at the different ways of nursing. REFERENCES Biography of Dorothea Orem (n.d.). In Nursing Theories. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://nursingtheories.info/biography-of-dorothea-orem/. Dorothea Orem Collection (n.d.). In Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/papers/orem.html. Dorothea Orem: Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory (n.d.). In Nursing Theories. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://nursingtheories.info/dorothea-orem-self-care-deficit-nursing-theory/. Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory (2012, February 4). In Current Nursing. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://currentnursing.com/nursing_theory/self_care_deficit_theory.html. George, J.B. (2010). Nursing theories: The base for professional nursing practice (6 th ed.). Philadelphia: Pearson. Masters, K. (2012). Nursing Theories. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Kevin Sullivan. Name of Theorist: Dorothea Orem, (1914-2007). (n.d.). Nurses Week. Retrieved July 19, 2014, from http://nursesweek.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Dorothea.pdf. Potter, P.A., Perry, A.G., Stockert, P.A., & Hall, A.M. (2012). Fundamentals of nursing (8 th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing Faculty & Students. (2013). Theory Based Nursing Practice. Retrieved 7/20/2014, from: http://www.utc.edu/nursing/pdfs/classes/orem-handbook.pdf.
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