Uses, and Major Concepts/Paradigms of Orem's Theory

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One of the nursing theories most commonly used in practice is Orem’s theory. Dorothea Orem is one of America’s well-known nursing theorists. Orem’s theory guides nurses to assist in meeting self-care deficits whether based only on the cognitive or on the technical. Orem focused on capabilities or action and self-management. Orem’s purpose for developing the self-care framework includes: Trying to find the meaning of nursing and to develop a body of nursing knowledge based on research. Orem believes that nursing is a caring approach that uses experimental and specialized knowledge (science) to design and produce nursing care (art). The self-care deficit theory proposed by Orem is a combination of three theories, the theory of self-care expresses the purpose of taking care of self, referred to as the self–care requisites; the how of taking care of self, referred to as the self-care agency; and the outcome of these, known as the self-care practices for self-care system. The deficit is identified by the nurse through the thorough assessment of the patient. Once the need is identified, the nurse has to select required nursing systems to provide care: wholly compensatory, partly compensatory or supportive and educative system. Care is provided according to the degree of deficit the patient is presenting with and once the care is provided, the nursing activities and the use of the nursing systems will be evaluated to get an idea about whether the mutually planned goals are met. By using the nursing process, I will be able to design a plan of care for patients. Orem’s theory works for me because it has utility for professional nursing in the design of curriculums for preservice, graduate, nursing education administration, and nursing research. It gives me directions to nursing–specific outcomes related to knowing and meeting the therapeutic self-care demands, regulating

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