Essay on Empowering Patients: Applying Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory in Healthcare Practice

Introduction

Dorothea Orem's self-care deficit nursing theory provided the blueprint to care providers on prioritizing primary care as people's and patients' core responsibility. Integrating self-care in nursing is essential in managing diversified health problems from patients by care providers. According to Hartweg (2010), self-care is a necessary form of primary care and can effectively improve the population's social and economic status. Dorothea Orem's self-care deficit nursing theory provides the theoretical framework for nurses and other medical professionals to study patients and the environment around them to formulate an effective care practice instrumental for improving patients' health status under their care. The model also helps nursing practitioners study the different conditions conducive to developing particular illnesses and developing preventive measures to eliminate them. Since people are the primary caretakers of their well-being, there is a need for health practitioners to provide them with the necessary knowledge and practices on how to acquire and attain a healthy status effectively.

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Orem's self-care deficit theory states that patients have a high chance of recovering from an illness, given that the health care provider institutes them to be in charge of their self-care. According to Orem's conceptualization of the model, it serves the primary purpose of guiding healthcare providers in training patients on how to effectively manage the different diseases that are a threat to their health status (Sharifi, 2017). The nurse's role is to help a patient become the primary care provider towards a speedy recovery. Besides, Orem's theory obligates nurses and other health professionals to sensitize the general population about critical health issues, which is a strategy of preventing an epidemic or pandemic eruption, which can be catastrophic well-being of many and sometimes cause untimely deaths to people. For instance, public health officials can educate the community about hygiene practices, which is vital in preventing cholera outbreaks.

Concepts in Orem's Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory

Self-care is a human supervisory role that should be consciously executed to avail of the conducive environment necessary for "continued life, growth, and development for sustained human integrity" (Wills, 2019). Whether a person is healthy or sick, self-care is of fundamental importance to a clinically recommended health status. It involves such acts as bathing, taking meals, or having prescribed medication to treat or manage a diagnosed condition. Self-care relates to the primary role a nurse practitioner plays in the treatment procedure. Nursing is the primary care provider to a patient, so it is an individual to their well-being.

Self-care requisites form a critical portion of self-care, which entails those actions that a person has to undertake to control human and environmental elements that affect the proper functioning or development of a person or the population (Wills, 2019). In nursing, the concept can be defined as preventive measures to suppress the existing health problems that threaten humans' well-being. For instance, immunization prevents children from catching infectious diseases, and physical exercise for the old population to prevent lifestyle diseases such as diabetes.

Therapeutic self-care demand entails the nurses' or primary caregivers' effort to model a client's or a patient's dependence on self-care needs due to the incapacity of the subject to independently initiate or meet basic healing requirements (Wills, 2019). Nurses need to identify specific deficits in their patients that may be problematic to their recovery and develop a clinical or social strategy to solve them, such as engaging in physiotherapy to a patient who has lost their locomotive abilities to offer them professional help to heal.

Deliberate action refers to consciously taken activities with the awareness or the motivation that the actor's practices are ascertaining self-care or dependent care (Wills, 2019). In nursing, deliberate actions entail treatment practices that make the healing prescription, such as waking a sleeping patient to take the medication to maintain the treatment procedure's consistency.

Theoretical Assumptions of Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory

Orem's primary assumption is that human beings are self-reliant and should be responsible for their well-being and care for others who need their help to maintain sustainable life forms. The self-care concept in the model explains those activities that a person performs for themselves or others to maintain vital life standards supporting a healthy status (Queiros, 2014). People engage in cleaning their bodies or eating a balanced diet consciously to keep themselves healthy. Orem observed how a person could independently take care of their well-being daily, which provided her with the basis for formulating the theory. Due to the theory's self-care capabilities assumption, nurses and other health practitioners can use the concept to manage patients or assist them in doing it independently when adhering to a specified healing procedure prescribed by the doctor.

Another theoretical assumption made by Dorothea Orem is that nursing is an interactional venture that involves two or more people with a specified goal to be achieved to maintain or restore the healthy status of an individual. The theory recognizes medical problems in human society and provides therapeutic solutions or routine maintenance to ensure that people do not fall ill or succumb to the disease (Queiros, 2014). Therefore, the theory obligates nurses to improve the public self-care capacity to ensure they can live with pathologic conditions present in the environment utilizing the interactive advantage envisioned in the model.

Applying the Theory in Nursing Practice

Reviewing O'Shaughnessy's article "Application of Dorothea Orem's Theory of Self-Care to the Elderly Patient on Peritoneal Dialysis," the model can effectively apply in the nursing practice health conditions that are related to specific demographic traits such as the elderly population. Old age is associated with particular chronic illnesses such as renal problems or diabetes. The treatment procedures applied to patients with a chronic health condition may be a stressful experience resulting in the development of mental health issues leading to the worsening of the patient's health status. Inclusion peritoneal dialysis in renal therapy has been used restrictively due to resulting cognitive problems such as depression, stress, and anxiety that result from this procedure (O'Shaughnessy, 2014). Applying Orem's theory into nursing practice has benefits therapeutically to help them cope with the dialysis procedure to treat renal conditions in elderly patients while suppressing underlying stressing factors to prevent them from developing mental health disorders.

Dorothea Orem's self-care deficit nursing theory provides a theoretical framework for nurses to assess their patients and structure an effective treatment procedure that will result in positive outcomes. Orem's theory indicates that human beings can manage their self-care, and nurses should identify deficit areas to help patients become their primary care (O'Shaughnessy, 2014). According to the theory, nurses should improve the patient's self-care capacity with chronic health conditions such as the elderly suffering from renal failure. For instance, the nurse may use the theory to identify the lack of proper social engagement as a deficit undermining the positive outcomes expected from the routine therapy, or lack of resources to afford the accompanying medication. Self-care deficit occurs when demands are higher than a person's ability to attend to them, hence creating a balance whereby the nurse becomes the patient's primary caregiver until they regain their abilities back (O'Shaughnessy, 2014). Therefore, the assessment helps a nurse practitioner identify a deficit in a patient's self-care abilities and intervene to help them regain back their health status to normal.

Orem's theory can be clinically used to improve nursing practice throughout the healthcare system. Orem's model routes for empowering patients to become aware of the significant health problems and solutions, enabling them to indulge in informed decision-making procedures (O'Shaughnessy, 2014). Nurses can apply Orem's model to identify the various self-care deficits present in the entire healthcare system by evaluating the different cases and approaches used to improve a patient's health. The analysis will equip them with essential information to enlighten the agency on managing the different health conditions. Discovering a self-care deficit is essential in improving a patient's ability to become their primary care provider by availing information necessary for well well-thought-out decision-making procedure (O'Shaughnessy, 2014). Engaging a multidisciplinary approach to identify self-care deficits provides a crucial practical intervention plan to manage critical patients in the community. Therefore, Orem's theory can be used to develop an evidence-based plan from previous clinical cases that will improve the patient's self-care ability with chronic illness to use home treatment to manage health problems.

Conclusion

Dorothea Orem's self-care deficit nursing theory is essential in nursing practice. The model provides a theoretical framework that can be used by healthcare providers to assess the self-care deficit from a patient's environment, thus developing an intervention plan to help people become primary care providers of their well-being. The model promotes knowledge empowerment of people on critical issues regarding their health needs and becomes aware of a pathogenic environment to minimize disease outbreaks.

References

Hartweg, D. L. (2010). Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Deficit Theory. In M. E. Parker, Nursing Theories and Nursing Practices (pp. pp. 121-143). Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Company.

Wills, E., and McEwen, M. (2019). Concept development: Clarifying the meaning of terms. In M. McEwen and E.M. Wills (Eds.), Theoretical basis for nursing, (pp. 49-71). Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins

O'Shaughnessy, M. (2014). Application of Dorothea Orem's Theory of Self-Care to the Elderly Patient on Peritoneal Dialysis. Nephrology Nursing Journal, pp. 495-497.

Queiros, P. J. (2014). Self-Care: Orem's theoretical contribution to the nursing discipline and profession. Revista de Enfermagem, pp. 157-163. https://dx.doi.org/10.12707/RIV14081.

Sharifi, N. F. (2017). Prevention of osteoporosis in female students based on the Orem self-care model. Electronic Physician, pp. 5465-5471. DOI: 10.19082/5465