Nursing theory is fundamental in nursing becoming a professional discipline with its own knowledge which helps to improve practice, therefore, nursing theory should be included in the master’s program because master’s prepared graduate is prepared to advance nursing practice hence maintain the profession. Furthermore, the American association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) expects the master’s degree program to prepare the graduate to integrate theory, evidence, clinical judgement and interprofessional perspective in order to improve practice which is the goal of nursing theory (2011).
Nursing theory is very important to the nursing profession because it is the reason the nursing profession gained recognition as a professional discipline capable of generating its own knowledge which guides the nursing practice, nursing education and nursing research. Nurses need to understand the theoretical foundation and importance of theory to nursing practice in order to be able to apply it in clinical practice and help to generate more knowledge to describe nursing phenomenon for future …show more content…
Nursing theorists and nursing pioneers have worked hard to develop theories that reflects the beliefs and values of nursing as a professional discipline. According to Bond et al, is concerned with the fact that some scientists claim that nurses are not using theory to guide their research which is used to guide nursing practice to improve clinical practice (2011). Nursing theory is tested in research prior to being applied to practice and the knowledge gained in practice is equally tested for the purpose of improving practice in order to continue to provide quality care to patients. Nursing theory ought to be taught at all nursing education level instead of at graduate level if the theory is to be integrated into practice. In addition, there is interrelationship between nursing theory development and nursing research studies to nursing practice, therefore, there is no reason why there is disassociation in use of nursing theory by nursing researcher. I believe that by graduate school, theory would have been imbedded in the nurses such that the use of theory in practice will be easy, then, nursing theory will not be seen as abstract and not practical (Bond et al,