Review the theory Dorothea Orem: Self-Care Deficit Theory and explain
The theory
The level of abstraction
The components of the theory
The development of the theory.
Sample Answer
The Theory
Orem’s self-care deficit theory defines nursing as the process of assisting patients through providing and managing their self-care needs so as to improve or maintain their ideal functioning (Younas, 2017).
The Level of Abstraction
Orem’s theory consists of three main ingredients, including self-care deficit theory, theory of self-care, and the theory of nursing systems. The nursing systems theory is further categorized into supportive-educative, partially compensatory, and wholly compensatory (Božić et al., 2015).
The Components of the Theory
Orem’s theory is made up of different components, including humans, nursing, self-care, health, basic conditioning factors, self-care agency, self-care deficit, therapeutic self-care demand, nursing system, and nursing agency (Božić et al., 2015). Orem views nursing as art through which a caregiver provides specialized services to assist individuals with certain deficiencies in meeting their self-care needs. On the other hand, Orem defines humans as men, women, and children who possess health care needs either as social units or as individuals. Humans are, therefore, the subjects of care services by nurses and other professionals who provide health care (Božić et al., 2015). Oren defines the environment as possessing chemical, physical, and biological features. According to Orem, the environment also includes communities, cultures, and families. According to Orem, health is being functionally and structurally whole or sound. Orem views self-care as activities that individuals perform on their own to maintain health, life, and wellbeing. According to Orem, self-care agency is the human ability to engage or power self-care, which will be significantly affected by different conditioning factors. Basic conditioning factors, therefore, include age, gender, developmental state, health state, patterns of living, healthcare system factors, family systems factors, sociocultural orientation, availability of resources, and environmental factors (Younas, 2017). In Orem’s view, therapeutic self-care demand will be all self-care actions that an individual will perform in a given time to meet certain known self-care needs through different actions. According to Orem, individuals will experience self-care deficit when they need nursing care. Individuals with self-care deficits will not be capable of satisfying their self-care needs. Orem views a nursing agency as people who are trained and educated as nurses to enable them to help patients in meeting their self-care demands in moments of self-care deficit. A nursing system, therefore, emerges from the relationships between nurses and patients. The nursing system, therefore, emerges when the therapeutic self-care demands of a patient exceed their self-care agency resulting in the demand for nursing (Božić et al., 2015).
The Development of the Theory
The development of Orem’s theory involves a combination of three interrelated concepts. The first concept is the theory of self-care. This concept concentrates on the practice and performance of activities that individuals can initiate on their own to maintain health, life, and wellbeing. Every individual, therefore, has universal health care requisites such as intake of food, water, and the elimination process, among others (Wanchai, 2018). The second concept of Orem’s theory is the theory of self-care deficit. This concept highlights that nursing will only be required only in cases where an individual is not able to effectively fulfill their self-care needs on their own (Wanchai, 2018). The third concept of Orem’s theory is the theory of the nursing system, which highlights the relationship between patients and nurses as nurses seek to fulfill the self-care demands of their patients (Wanchai, 2018).
References
- Božić, A., Brestovački-Svitlica, B., & Milutinović, D. (2015). Dorothea Orem’s self-care theory and possibilities of its application. Sestrinska Rec, 19(72), 2–3. https://doi.org/10.5937/sestrec1572002b
- Wanchai, A. (2018). Promoting Self-Care Capabilities of Patients: Nurses’ RolesSelf-Care Capabilities. JOJ Nursing & Health Care, 7(4), 001–004. https://doi.org/10.19080/jojnhc.2018.07.555719
- Younas, A. (2017). A Foundational Analysis of Dorothea Orem’s Self-Care Theory and Evaluation of Its Significance for Nursing Practice and Research. Creative Nursing, 23(1), 13–23. https://doi.org/10.1891/1078-4535.23.1.13
