Week 4
NURS 6110 - Section 15: Linking Theory to Nursing Practice
Glenda Liz Tirado
October 3, 2010
Theory into Practice Plan, Implementation and Evaluation The purpose of this paper is to discuss a theory that can be applied to my professional practice as a Home Health Nurse. As a nurse one understand the importance of finding a theory that can be professionally used to promote better patient goal outcomes and assure quality of care. The following paper will review the Levine’s Conservation Model providing insight into its concepts and the attempt to implement this model into my professional practice. My priority as a home health nurse is to assist the patient toward a healthy regardless of absence of illness. I chose the Conservation Model created by Myra Levine because it was created to guide the nurse toward implementing interventions that my help the patient during illness. The model is designed to care for the individual towards health taking into consideration aspects in the individual’s environment that could affect him in that journey. The conservation model depends greatly on the nurse’s ability for observation and the identification of problems affecting the patient’s health. By visiting the patient at home, I have the opportunity to observe and understand firsthand the patient’s living situation and dangerous environmental factors in the community where he or she resides. Observation is a vital factor in Levine’s Conservation Model. (Schaefer, 2006; Leach, n.d.)
The Conservation Model The purpose of the Conservation Model, created by Myra Levine in the 1970s, is to “guide the nurse to focus on the influences and responses at the organismic level” (Schaefer, 2006, p. 97). Organismic refers to “related of belonging to an organism (considered as a whole)” according to Thesaurus definition (2008). Levine was aware of nurse’s influence as they were assisting the patient
References: Leach, M. J. (n.d.). Wound Management: Using Levine’s Conservation Model to Guide Practice. Ostomy Wound Management [OWM], 52(8). Retrieved from http://www.o-wm.com/article/6024 Levine’s four conservation principles. (2010). Retrieved from http://currentnursing.com/nursing_theory/Levin_four_conservation_principles.html Mefford, L. C. (1999). The relationship of nursing care to health outcomes of preterm infants: Testing a theory of health promotion for preterm infants based on Levine 's Conservation Model of Nursing. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Tennessee, United States -- Tennessee. Retrieved from ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source. (AAT 9944269). Organismic (Definition). Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/organismic` Schaefer, K.M. (2006). Myra Levine’s conservation model and its applications. In M.E. Parker, Nursing theories and nursing practice (2nd ed.), pp. 94-112. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis.