Orem’s Self-Care Theory Adventist University of Health Sciences

Orem’s Self-Care Theory
Biography
Dorothea Orem was the founder of the Self-Care theory of nursing also known as The Orem Model of Nursing. She was born in 1914 in Baltimore, Maryland and lived until 2007. She earned her diploma at Providence Hospital in Washington DC, her BSN in 1939, and MSN in 1945 both from the Catholic University of America. She also later received many honorary Doctor of Science degrees from many different institutions in years 1976, 1980, 1988, and 1998 (Currentnursing.com, 2012). She was a very well educated woman and she worked as a staff nurse, private duty nurse, an educator, administrator, and a nurse consultant. Her self-care theory was first published in 1971 in Nursing: Concepts of Practice.
Self-Care Theory
Dorothea Orem’s theory focused on the “individual’s ability to perform self-care, defined as ‘the practice of activities that individuals initiate and perform on their own behalf in maintaining life, health, and well-being” (Nurselabs, 2014). Orem’s theory was comprised of three interrelated theories within the big picture: the theory of self-care, the self-care deficit theory, and the theory of nursing systems, which is further classified into wholly compensatory, partial compensatory, and supportive-educative (Nurselabs, 2014). Orem’s goal for nursing is to care for and help the patient attain total self-care. Her framework for practice with this theory is that nursing care is necessary when the patient is unable to fulfill biological, psychological, developmental, or social needs (Potter & Perry, 2012). The self-care theory basically means that you, the patient, should be able to take care of yourself and if that is not possible nursing steps in to provide what is needed.

Self-Care Theory Application to Nursing
The self-care theory basically is stating that if someone is unable to provide for themselves then someone else, nurses, need to step in to help them accomplish the task on their own. Orem made sure that she stated these things needed to perform on their own are