Posted: July 14th, 2022

Theory Development in Nursing

Theory Development in Nursing

Nursing has gone through phenomenal achievements in the past century. In the years preceding Flora Nightingale’s era, nursing practice was viewed as a vocation characterized by simple and basic tasks requiring little or no precise skills or training. However, Nightingale and nurse educators, researchers, scholars, and philosophers that succeeded her made significant inputs in developing theories that have shaped nursing from a vocation to the academic discipline and profession it is today. Theory development has also become a fundamental component in the advancement of knowledge and enhancement of the quality of the nursing practice.

It is on the basis of nursing theories that significant choices concerning the nursing profession and the part it plays in health care are settled upon. Nursing theories serve as a guide to critical thinking. The nursing theories give a complete examination of what is required of the nurses during practice, models, and communication channels within the nursing profession. These nursing theories are used to characterize all of the practices that define the nursing phenomenon. In other words, nursing theories offer scholars and academics a framework from which they can build their knowledge, as well as providing insight into the history and the current foundations of the nursing profession. These theories make use of models to define the connection between common ideas and many areas of health care. Additionally, these theories explain how nurses and patients can work together to achieve healing and improve their overall health. Nursing is currently an evidence-based practice, which means that it derives its knowledge and makes its decisions based on a collection of well-established theories and ideas.

The development of a nursing theory begins when a theory that seeks to or promises to address a particular nursing phenomenon is brought forward. What follows is a series of considerations that involve vetting aspects like completeness and logic, consistency, and correspondence with internal and empirical findings. The proposed theory is also scrutinized whether it has been well defined operationally for testing. More analysis of this nature follows to ensure adjustments and development of the theory.

The development process often incorporates years of rigorous research and compilation of scientific evidence that either supports or contests theoretical claims and assertions. The appraisal process also gives insight into details and guides adjustments and development of the theory. The development of nursing theories is a systematic process that involves thorough scientific research and analysis. However, while each theory’s construction differs, the development process is typically similar in that it follows precise, methodical, and explicit steps. Every devised theory must go through a series of reviews and critiques from nurse theoreticians and researchers who approach the proposed theory from an unbiased perspective and appraise it based on existing evidence.

References

Chinn, Peggy L., and Maeona K. Kramer. Knowledge Development in Nursing-E-Book: Theory and Process. Elsevier Health Sciences Essay Writers, 2017.

Im, Eun-Ok. “Theory Development Strategies for Middle-Range Theories.” Advances in Nursing Science 41.3 (2018): 275-292.

Indra, V. “Nursing Theories: A Review.” International Journal of Advances in Nursing Management 6.3 (2018): 271-274.

 

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