Introduction to Nursing Theories Nursing 210 Spring 2004

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Introduction to Nursing TheoriesNursing
210Spring 2004

• Curlissa Mapp RN, BSN
• Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer
  University

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Practicing nurses who despise theory are
condemned to performing a series of tasks -
either at the command of a physician or in
response to routines and policies.

• Leah Curtin, RN, MS, FAAN (1989)
• Former Editor, Nursing Management

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• WHY STUDY NURSING THEORY?
• WHAT DOES THE PRACTICING NURSE WANT FROM NURSING
  THEORY?

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Nursing must examine

• What is the nature of knowledge needed for the
  practice of nursing?

• What it means to practice nursing?

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• The study and use of nursing theory in nursing
  practice must have roots in the everyday practice
  of nurses
• (Gordon, Parker, Jester, 2001)

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Reasons for Studying Nursing Theory

• Everyday practice enriches theory
• Practice and theory guided by values and beliefs
• Reframe thinking about nursing
• Theory guides use of ideas and techniques
• Close gap between theory and research
• Envision potentialities
• (Gordon, Parker, Jester, 2001)

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Nursing Theory and the Practicing Nurse

• Theory assists the practicing nurse to
• Organize patient data
• Understand patient data
• Analyze patient data
• Make decisions about nursing interventions
• Plan patient care
• Predict outcomes of care
• Evaluate patient outcomes
• (Alligood, 2001)

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STURUCTURAL HIERARCHY OF NURSING KNOWLEDGE
COMPONENTS LEVEL OF ABSTRACTIONS

Metaparadigm
Most Abstract
Philosophies
Conceptual Models
Theories
Most Concrete
Empirical Indicators
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METAPARADIGM

• - Global concepts that identify the phenomena of
  interest
• Global propositions that describe the concepts
• Global propositions that state the relations
  between the concepts
• (Fawcett, 2000)

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FUNCTION OF THE METAPARADIGM

• Summarize the intellectual and social missions of
  a discipline and place a boundary on the subject
  matter of that discipline

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METAPARADIGM

• Phenomena of interest to nursing is represented
  by Four Central Concepts

• Person
• 2. Environment
• 3. Health
• 4. Nursing

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PHILOSOPHIES

• A statement encompassing claims about a phenomena
  of central interest to a discipline, claims about
  how a phenomena comes to be known and claims
  about what the members of a discipline value

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FUNCTION OF PHILOSOPHIES

• To Communicate
• What people assume to be true in relation to the
  phenomena of interest to a discipline.
  (Christensen Kenney, 1990)
• - What people believe regarding the development
  of knowledge about those phenomena

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PHILOSOPHIES

• Florence Nightingales work is an example of a
  philosophy

• Example of philosophical statement
• the individual behaves purposefully, not in a
  sequence of cause and effect.
• (Roy, 1988, p. 32)

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CONCEPTS

• Word or phrase that summarizes the essential
  characteristics or properties of a phenomenon

• Abstract idea (i.e. Hope, love, desire, pain,
  body temperature)
• Derived from impressions the human mind receives
  about phenomena through sensing the environment
  (McEwen Willis, 2002)

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CONCEPTS

• Are equivalent of bricks in a wall and lend
  structure to science (Hardy, 1973, Wuest, 1994)
• Are defined for each specific use the writer or
  researcher makes of the term (Hardy, 1973)

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CONCEPTS

• When operationalized become variables used in
  hypotheses to be tested in research.
• Explicate subject matter of theories of a
  discipline

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CONCEPTUAL MODELS

• A set of abstract and general concepts and
  propositions that integrate those concepts into a
  meaningful configuration.
• (Lippitt, 1973 Nye Berardo, 1981)

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FUNCTION OF CONCEPTUAL MODELS

• Frameworks or paradigms that provide a broad
  frame of reference for systematic approaches to
  the phenomena with which the discipline is
  concerned. (Tomey Alligood, 2002)

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EXAMPLE CONCEPTUAL MODELS

• - Kings General Systems Framework
• - Roys Adaptation Model

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CONCEPTUAL MODELS

• Word structures that provide a specific view on
  nursing through the interrelationship of concepts
  in the structure.

• VERBAL worded statements, a form closely
  related to knowledge development
• SCHEMATIC diagrams, drawings, graphs or
  pictures that facilitate understanding

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THEORIES

• A group of related concepts that propose action
  that guides practice

• Consist of one or more relatively specific and
  concrete concepts and propositions that purport
  to account for or organize some phenomenon
  (Barnum, 1998)

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FUNCTION OF THEORIES

• Primary Purpose
• To Generate Knowledge

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Theories vary in their level of abstraction and
scope

• GRAND THEORY
• - More abstract and broad in scope

• MIDDLE-RANGE THEORY
• - More concrete and narrower in scope

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Nursing Theory

• Describes or Explains Nursing

• Enable nurses to know
• WHY they are doing
• WHAT they are doing

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EMPIRICAL INDICATORS

• A very concrete and specific real world proxy for
  a middle-range theory concept
• An actual instrument, experimental condition or
  clinical procedure that is used to observe or
  measure a middle-range theory concept
• (Fawcett, 2002)

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FUNCTION OF EMPIRICAL INDICATORS

• Provide the means by which middle-range theories
  are generated or tested
• Indicators that are experimental conditions or
  clinical procedures tell the researcher or
  clinician exactly what to do ( protocols or
  scripts that direct actions in a precise manner)
• (Fawcett, 2002)

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• SUMMARY