Deficit Theory: Dorothea Orem's Theory Of Self-Care

Dorothea Orem’s Theory of Self-Care Dorothea Orem, born in 1914 in Baltimore, Maryland, was an accomplished nursing school director, professor, and curriculum consultant. With the formation of her Self-Care Deficit Theory, she also became one of the most prominent and essential nursing theorists of the 20th century (Johns Hopkins). Furthering the work of influential theorists before her such as Florence Nightingale and Virginia Henderson, Orem modeled her Self-Care Deficit Theory around the fundamental idea that patients should be as self-reliant and responsible for their care as possible, and that those patients who are more invested in self-care experience better health outcomes (NursingTheory.org). This paper will go into depth about the contents of Dorothea Orem’s Self-Care Deficit …show more content…
Moreover, MVP-diagnosed patients experience troublesome symptoms associated with the condition, which results in confusion about the implications and seriousness of their condition. Utz and Ramos, 1993, determined that the Self-Care Deficit Theory would be an appropriate framework to apply to this disparity because it provided “systematic guidelines for examining the balance between patients’ needs, capabilities and limitations in exercising self-care actions to enhance personal health” (Utz & Ramos, 1993). Rather than relying only on a clinical diagnosis, Orem’s theory requires that the nursing focus when assessing and planning treatment be on the client’s perspective of their condition. After performing their study comparing the way patients with MVP were treated by doctors versus nurses, Utz and Ramos concluded that a specific method of nursing assistance, in this case the Self-Care Deficit Theory, was beneficial to this vulnerable subgroup of patients (Utz & Ramos,