Orem's Self-Care Theory in Nursing Practice and Education

The Importance of Nursing Theory

Theories are composed of definitions, concepts, propositions, and models based on assumptions. A theory serves as a group of related concepts guiding a professional practice. Nursing theory is a set of interrelated concepts, definitions, and statements that propose to explain nursing phenomena, assisting in predicting and explaining nursing outcomes. Nursing theory is also a body of knowledge used to support nursing practice. In other words, nursing theories deliver the framework linking nursing practice, nursing knowledge, and nursing research (Alligood & Tomey, 2002).

Theories are based on two principal methods: deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Nursing theories draw on both. Nursing's top-down logic uses deductive reasoning to make critical decisions about patient care, while nurses can also use a bottom-up approach to apply nursing care through inductive reasoning.

Nurses play a critical role in the promotion of health. Their responsibilities include preventing disease and encouraging positive health behaviors in patients. Effective implementation of ethical conduct is the top priority of the nursing profession. Nursing theory guides the professional conduct of nurses and assists professional nurses in understanding how to identify symptoms and deliver patient care. Professionally, nursing is built on theory, and nursing theory strengthens nursing practice. Moreover, theory assists nurses in effectively analyzing and organizing patient data, which in turn aids in its interpretation.

More importantly, nursing theories assist professional nurses in making clinically sound judgments regarding clinical practice, thereby enhancing professional performance. One of the major benefits of nursing theories is that they assist in measuring quality and building a common terminology, enabling communication with other health professionals. In other words, a nursing theory serves as common ground on which professional nurses communicate with one another regarding patient care. Moreover, nursing theories provide a strong foundation for assessment, diagnosis, and patient intervention. Nursing theories also solidify nursing professionals as effective team members capable of providing high-quality healthcare and making valuable contributions to patient treatment.

Orem's Self-Care Theory: Key Points and Inter-Relationships

This paper identifies self-care theory as an important nursing theory. A major function of nurses in the early era was to deliver care to patients, and self-care theory is a grand-range theory that focuses on the well-being and health sustenance of patients. To meet a patient's care needs, nurses are to act, support, guide, teach, and design an environment that meets the patient's self-care needs. The self-care theory reveals that while some patients can meet some basic aspects of self-care, the assistance of nurses remains critical to fulfilling patients' broader self-care activities.

Renpenning and Taylor (2003) argue that Orem was the first pioneer of self-care theory in 1956 and that her theory was used to formulate the nursing definition. Before the 1950s, the function of nurses was understood largely in terms of social dependence. However, 1956 marked the beginning of the implementation of the self-care concept in understanding nursing practice. By 1980, the theory of self-care had become an articulated concept in nursing theory and an essential framework in human healthcare endeavors. The theoretical position of self-care theory assists nurses in validating knowledge about human function.

Jaarsma et al. (2012) point out that despite the importance of self-care theory in a clinical setting, it was not initially included in middle-range theory, which is critical to maintaining patient healthcare systems. Health is dynamic, and those who seek care from organized healthcare organizations do so to obtain treatment and be relieved of their conditions. When a nurse interacts with patients, the intention is to form a partnership that motivates patients to achieve a level of self-care that can enhance their lifestyle. Self-care therefore occurs within the context of rewarding mutual relationships.

Orem (2001) also developed self-care requisites influenced by several factors, including age, gender, developmental state, socio-cultural orientation, healthcare system, family system factors, and patterns of living. The self-care deficit theory explains why an individual requires nursing care, and the therapeutic self-care requisite is critical for each individual. A person's ability to meet that therapeutic demand depends on available nursing care. The theory explains the strategies nurses employ in assisting individuals to achieve their self-care needs and identifies the functions of nurses within nursing practice, which include:

Expressing the focus of nursing practice in human society, and identifying nursing as a field of knowledge.

The benefits of the self-care requisites theory are that it reveals the positive contribution of nurses to patients and clarifies the relationships between patients and nurses. Moreover, the theory promotes the scope and nature of nursing, clarifies the role of nursing, and distinguishes functions not relevant to the nursing profession. The theory also provides structure, focus, communication, and measurable outcomes of nursing care, assisting in building a greater understanding of nursing actions and their effectiveness.

Conclusion

This paper discusses the importance of nursing theory for the nursing profession and identifies the Orem self-care model as an important theoretical framework. Several important concepts emerge from this study. First, nursing theories guide the application of nursing practice and reveal its relevance to the health profession. Without theories to guide professional nursing practice, nursing might not have achieved its status as a recognized profession.