Evaluation and Analysis of Conceptual Models of Nursing; Martha Rogers
According to Martha Rogers’s theory, a unitary person is an irreducible, indissoluble energy field. Martha notes that people and environments are energy fields. They are open for swap over and extend to perpetuity.
The array of responsibilities and disciplines that nurses undertake are enormously extensive. A successful nurse has got to be aware of the anthropogenic and the physiological complications of ill health. In the nursing practice, even though not formal; they often suggest diagnoses and interventions to doctors. Nurses furthermore are mediators for the ill by way of regards towards other health care fraternity, organizations, and other entities such as health care insurance companies. Hence nurses should have broader variety of interpersonal, management, and procedural skills. The skills support is compounded from numerous disciplines, including physiology, sociology, psychology, and bookkeeping.
The purpose of nursing according to Martha’s theory is to sustain and promote health and wellbeing, prevent disease, as well as care for and rehabilitate the ill and the disabled patients. Martha considers man as an energy field coexisting within the universe. Man is in continuous interaction with the environment.
Rogerian theory in nursing is illustrated in the practice of curative touch and it is one of the procedures in nursing that involve moving of the hands over the sick patient, exclusive of the mere touch. Assessing can be done via holding the arms two to six inches away from the patient’s energy field at the same time moving the arms commencing from the patient’s head to the limb in a rhythmic style. Later on, healing of the unwell can be realized through stirring the hands toward the patient’s body regions that give the impression of requiring consideration (Mitchell, 1987).
According to Rogers nursing knowledge is often insufficient and highly subjective. In nurses’ perceptions, feelings, and actions are guided by their personal framework or perspective of nursing, this provides a cognitive structure based on their assumptions, beliefs, and values about nursing. Many of the nurses use medical as their perspective of care giving Rogerian theory not being an exception. A nurse becomes aware of the differences between the present and potential possibilities of nursing practice, they experience a cognitive dissonance or discomfort from an awareness of what is supposed to be done and what is not supposed to be done. Thus it is only when they gain this dissonance that they will change their framework of practice, decision making and actions.
Perspective change can be termed as the process of transition from one framework of reference to another. It is a process of critical reflection and analysis of other explanations or perspectives that might resolve the dilemma and explain or guide ones understanding and actions. The process involves gradual acquiring of a new perspective that leads to a fundamental change in the way nurses experience, interpret, and understand their work and their relationship with others (Johnson, 1995)
Nursing diagnosis is only useful if we look at diagnosis as a concept denoting a phenomenon (Geoffrey, 2000).Rogers theory can be useful in guiding nursing observations reflections decisions and actions using by answering the following questions; when does the ailment occur, why does it occur, how do you deal with it, how do you prevent it, and what other condition occur at the same time as the ailment.
Nursing diagnosis is only useful if we look at diagnosis as a concept denoting a phenomenon (Geoffrey, 2000).Rogers theory can be useful in guiding nursing observations reflections decisions and actions using by answering the following questions; when does the ailment occur, why does it occur, how do you deal with it, how do you prevent it, and what other condition occur at the same time as the ailment.
Rogers defined the goal and obligation of a nurse as the professional practice that seeks to promote symphonic man and environment, to strengthen the integrity of a person’s human energy field, as well as to direct and redirect energy fields of the human and environmental fields for achievement of optimum fitness potentials (Roger, 1970).
The purpose of nursing and what every nurse should think about is to promote good health and wellbeing of all people whatever their affiliation, race, or locality. According to Rogers’s theory a nurse works on mobilizing individuals, family resources, heightening his or her integrity, and strengthening the people to the environment relationship (Barrie, 1990).
Martha’s theory can be related to needs and activities of daily living. Diagnoses such as human upper respiratory problems, disability of the limbs, psycho spiritual concern, alteration in sleep and alteration in sexuality have clearly been described and defined in relation to a unitary human being (Kim, 1991). The definition enhances the theory’s clarity for nurses, decreases the level of abstraction and renders it more amenable to testing.
Some caregivers have demonstrated use of Rogerian theory for example in the delivery of care to patients with cardiac related problems and impaired neurological functions. Others have demonstrated the theory in injury healing and in conceptualizing hyperactive children within the frame work of synergism as being merely changes in a person’s pattern of interaction of the environment. Rogers provides the potential for understanding aging and offers more positive evolutionary changes to explain outcomes through her theory.
References
Barrie. (1990). Reflections on Healing: A Central Nursing Construct. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 321.
Geoffrey. (2000) Martha Rogers Nursing Theory: A brief Overview, Skeptical Inquirer
Mitchell, G. (1987). Nursing diagnosis: Process and application. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Johnson. (1995). Analysis of Conceptual Models of Nursing, Philadelphia: FA Tracy.
Kim, M. (1991). Nursing diagnosis research: Classification of nursing diagnoses. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Kinney, M. (1991). Operational definitions for defining characteristics. Nursing Diagnosis.
McGregor, D. (1987). The Therapeutic Touch Intervention. New York: Dodd Mead.
