Early Nursing Practice and the Emergence of Theory - Theoretical Foundations of Nursing Practice

Question 1

The aim of this theory is to organize knowledge about nursing to enable nurses to use it in a professional and accountable manner.

Answer 1

Nursing theory

Question 2

A purposeful set of assumptions or propositions that identify the relationships between concepts.

Answer 2

A theory

Question 3

Useful because they provide a systematic view for explaining, predicting and prescribing phenomena.

Answer 3

Theories

Question 4

Reflect a conceptualization of nursing for the purpose of describing, explaining, predicting, or prescribing care.

Answer 4

Nursing theories

Question 5

Constitute one aspect of disciplinary knowledge and create vital linkages to how inquiry is approached.

Answer 5

Theories

Question 6

Provide nurses with a perspective from which to view client situations, a way to organize data, and a method of analyzing and interpreting information to bring about coherent and informed nursing practice.

Answer 6

Nursing theory

Question 7

The advent of modern nursing practice in which the knowledge and practice of nursing are formalized into a professional context is often attributed to the work of:

Answer 7

Florence Nightingale

Question 8

A visionary leader in Victorian England who created systems for nursing education and practice.

Answer 8

Florence Nightingale

Question 9

Contemporary scholars now consider Florence Nightingale’s work as an early theoretical and conceptual ___ for nursing.

Answer 9

model

Question 10

Her descriptive theory provided nurses with a way to think about nursing practice in a frame of reference that focuses on patients and the envirionment.

Answer 10

Florence Nightingale

Question 11

After world war II, major developments in science and technology has a powerful influence on health care, including nursing practice, and nursing ___ came into its own.

Answer 11

science

Question 12

Organize core nursing concepts and propose relationships among these concepts.

Answer 12

Conceptual frameworks

Question 13

Used to answer these questions:

1) What are the focus and scope of nursing?
2) How is nursing unique and different from other health care professions?
3) What should be the appropriate disciplinary knowledge for professional nursing practice?

Answer 13

Conceptual frameworks

Question 14

“Mental maps” whose purpose was to make sense of the information and decisional processes that nurses needed to apply knowledge to nursing practice.

Answer 14

Conceptual frameworks

Question 15

A mental formulation of objects or events, representing the basic way in which ideas are organized and communicated (e.g. anxiety).

Answer 15

Concept

Question 16

The process of formulating concepts (e.g. framing behavioural patterns as anxiety-related).

Answer 16

Conceptualization

Question 17

A description of concepts, articulated in such a way that they can be applied to decision-making in practice. It links concepts with other concepts and with theories, and it often includes the essential properties and distinguishing features of a concept (e.g. differentiation and measurement of state and trait anxiety).

Answer 17

Operational definition

Question 18

A purposeful set of assumptions or propositions about concepts; shows relationships between concepts and thereby provides a systematic view of phenomena so that they may be explained, predicted, or prescribed (e.g. social determinants of illness).

Answer 18

Theory

Question 19

A description of concepts or connection of two concepts that are accepted as factual or true; includes “taken for granted” ideas about the nature and purpose of concepts, as well as the structure of theory (e.g. “nursing exists to serve a social mandate”).

Answer 19

Assumption

Question 20

A declarative assertion (e.g. “clients who receive appropriate nursing care have better health outcomes”).

Answer 20

Proposition

Question 21

An aspect of reality that can be consciously sensed or experienced; nursing concepts and theories represent the theoretical approach to making sense of aspects of reality of concern to nursing (e.g. pain).

Answer 21

Phenomenon

Question 22

Mental representation of how things work. For example, an architect’s plan for a house is not the house itself but rather the set of information necessary to understand how all of the building elements will be brought together to create that particular house (e.g. biopsychosocial model of health).

Answer 22

Theoretical model

Question 23

The theoretical structure that links concepts together for a specific purpose. When its purpose is to show how something works, it can also be described as a theoretical model.

Answer 23

Conceptual framework

Question 24

Often referred to as nursing models or nursing theories (e.g. Orem’s (1971) self-care model for nursing).

Answer 24

Conceptual framework

Question 25

Link major nursing concepts and phenomena to direct nursing decisions (e.g., what to assess, how to make sense of data, what to plan, how to enact a plan, and how to evaluate whether the plan has had the intended outcome).

Answer 25

Conceptual frameworks