Myiesha Melvin
Fayetteville State University
PNUR 210-01
Abstract
Dorothea Elizabeth Orem (1914-2007) born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland was an amazing nursing theorist. Orem obtained many degrees as well as honorary degrees. She was the creator of the Self-Care deficit theory, also known as the Orem model of nursing.
Dorothea Elizabeth Orem (born 1914 in Baltimore, Maryland and died 2007 in Savannah, Georgia) was a nursing theorist and creator of the self-care deficit nursing theory, also known as the Orem model of nursing. Orem earned her diploma at Providence Hospital in Washington, DC. She furthered her education at the Catholic University of America, where she received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Education in 1939 and a Master of Science in Nursing Education in 1945. After receiving two degrees, she worked as a staff nurse, private duty nurse, nurse educator and administrator, and nurse consultant. Orem was later awarded honorary doctoral degrees from Georgetown University, Incarnate Word College and Illinois Wesleyan University. While working as a nurse consultant in 1958, she began working on her self-care theory. Orem’s self-care theory was first published in Nursing: Concepts of Practice in 1971.
According to Orem, she stated the following in her theory:" The condition that validates the existence of a requirement for nursing in an adult is the health-associated absence of the ability to maintain continuously that amount and quality of self-care that is therapeutic in sustaining life and health, in recovering from disease or injury, or in coping with their effects. With children, the condition is the inability of the parent (or guardian) associated with the child's health state to maintain continuously for the child the amount and quality of care that is therapeutic." (Orem, 2001, p. 82) Orem’s theory is separated into three conceptual theories that include: self-care, self-care deficit, and nursing