There are different nursing theories and health theories to help us explain the phenomena

we are experiencing in health. Since nursing knowledge is the inclusive total of the

philosophies, theories, research, and practice wisdom of the discipline, these theories

define what nursing is or what sets it apart from different professions.

Below is a shortlist of different health and nursing theories.

Contents [show]

Abraham Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

Physiologic Needs: breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis,

excretion.

Safety Needs: security of: body, employment, resources, morality, family,

health, property.

Love and Belonging  Needs: friendship, sexual intimacy, family

Esteem Needs: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others,

respect by others

Self-actualization Needs: morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem

solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.

Adolf Meyer Believes in totality of man or the holistic approach to man.

Patients could best be understood through consideration of their life

situations.

Alfred Adler Superiority and inferiority complex and birth order.

He emphasized that one’s birth order as having an influence on the style of

life and the strengths and weaknesses in one’s psychological make up.

Anne Boykin & Savina Schoenhofer  All persons are caring and nursing is a response to unique social call.

Betty Neuman She developed the Health Care Systems Model.

Nursing is concerned with all the variables affecting an individual’s response

to stress, which are interpersonal, intrapersonal and extrapersonal in

nature.

Carl Jung Introversion and extroversion–persona

Dorothea Orem Developed self-care, self-care deficit and nursing systems theory.

Nurses have to supply care when the patients cannot provide care to

themselves.

By measuring the clients deficit relative to self care needs.

Dorothy Johnson Conceptualized the Behavioral Systems Model.

Each person is composed of 7 subsystems namely: ingestive, eliminative,

affiliative, aggressive, dependence, achievement and sexual.

She also stated that nursing was “concerned with man as an integrated

whole and this is the specific knowledge of order we require”.

Erik Erikson Psychosocial development of man.

Trust vs Mistrust, Autonomy vs Shame & Doubt, Initiative vs Guilt, Industry

vs Inferiority, Identity vs Role Confusion, Intimacy vs Isolation, Generativity

vs Stagnation, Ego Integrity vs Despair.

Ernestine Wiedenbach Nurse’s individual philosophy lends credence to nursing care.

Wiedenbach believed that there were 4 main elements to clinical nursing. 

They included: a philosophy, a purpose, a practice and the art.

Faye Abdellah Defined nursing as a service to individuals and families, therefore to society.

Identified 21 nursing problems.

To promote good hygiene and physical comfort

To promote optimal activity, exercise, rest, and sleep

To promote safety through prevention of accidents, injury, or other

trauma and through the prevention of the spread of infection

To maintain good body mechanics and prevent and correct deformities

To facilitate the maintenance of a supply of oxygen to all body cells

To facilitate the maintenance of nutrition of all body cells

To facilitate the maintenance of elimination

To facilitate the maintenance of fluid and electrolyte balance

To recognize the physiologic responses of the body to disease

conditions

To facilitate the maintenance of regulatory mechanisms and functions

To facilitate the maintenance of sensory function

To identify and accept positive and negative expressions, feelings, and

reactions

To identify and accept the interrelatedness of emotions and organic

illness

To facilitate the maintenance of effective verbal and nonverbal

communication

To promote the development of productive interpersonal relationships

To facilitate progress toward achievement of personal spiritual goals

To create and maintain a therapeutic environment

To facilitate awareness of self as an individual with varying physical,

emotional, and developmental needs

To accept the optimum possible goals in light of physical and emotional

limitations

To use community resources as an aid in resolving problems arising

from illness

To understand the role of social problems as influencing factors in the

cause of illness

Florence Nightingale Environmental Theory.

Focused on manipulating the environment for the patient’s recovery.

Pure or fresh air

Pure water

Sufficient food supplies

Efficient drainage

Cleanliness

Light (especially direct sunlight)

Galen Four temperaments

sanguine personality is fairly extroverted.

melancholic  is a person who is a thoughtful ponderer.

phlegmatic tends to be self-content and kind.

choleric is a do-er.

Harry Stack Sullivan Interpersonal theory and anxiety occurs due to poor interpersonal

relationship.

Hildegard Peplau Interpersonal model. Nursing is an interpersonal process of therapeutic

interactions between the sick and the nurse

Ida Jean Orlando Believed that nurses can help patients meet a perceived need that they

cannot meet themselves.

Nursing Process theory.

Imogene King Goal attainment theory

Nursing is a helping profession

Jean Piaget Cognitive development theory

Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, formal operations

Jean Watson Human Caring Model.

Nursing is the application of the art and human science through

transpersonal caring.

Lawrence Kohlberg Three (3) levels of moral development:

Premoral or preconventional

Conventional level

Postconventional level

Madeleine Leininger Transcultural nursing.

Nursing is a humanistic and scientific mode of helping a client through

specific cultural caring process.

Margaret Newman Health as expanding consciousness.

 Humans are unitary beings in whom disease is a manifestation of the

pattern of health.

Martha Rogers Science of Unitary Human Beings.

Human beings are more than and different from the sum of their parts.

Myra Levine Four conservation principles:

conservation of energy,

structural integrity,

personal integrity and

social integrity

Sigmund Freud Psychosexual theory and Psychoanalytic Theory

Sister Calista Roy Adaptation model.

Each person is a unified biopsychosocial system in constant interaction with

changing environment.

Virginia Henderson Identified 14 basic needs.

Nurse functions to assist clients in performing activities contributing to

health, recovery, or peaceful death.