Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Ida Jean Orlando Nursing Process theory 1962 (USA)

Doctor talking with a patient
(By National Cancer Institute [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Ida Jean Orlando Nursing Process theory 1962 (USA)

Ida Jean Orlando Pelletier (1926-2007) had worked as practitioner, educator,researcher and consultant in nursing. Throughout her career, she was active in various organizations including the Massachusetts Nurse’s Association and the Harvard Community Health Plan. She described the nursing process based on the interaction between patient and nurse. She has written a book “The dynamic nurse patient relationship” explains the factors which enhanced the integration of mental health of the people in the basic nursing curriculum and published in 1961 at the age of 36 years.

She defined the nursing is responsible to individuals who suffer or anticipate a sense of helplessness, it is focused on the process of care in an immediate experience, it is concerned with providing direct assistance to individuals in whatever setting and they are found for the purpose of avoiding, relieving, diminishing or curing the individual sense of helplessness. According to her theory, nurse patient relationship includes patient behavior, nurse’s reaction and professional function.

Patient behavior
The nursing process discipline is set in motion by patient behavior. It represents a plea for help. It may be verbal or non verbal. Verbal behavior consists of patient’s language in the form of complaints, requests, demands etc. Non verbal behavior includes physiological manifestations such as heart rate, perspiration, avoiding eye contact etc. If the nurse were not able to help the patient, helplessness would be developed. It reflects the distress, physical limitations and adverse reactions to the setting and experience which the patient from communicating his needs.

Nurse’s reaction
The patient behavior stimulates a nurse’s reaction, which paves the way for beginning of nursing process discipline. The reaction is comprised of three parts. First, the nurse perceives the behavior through any of her senses. Second, the perception leads to automatic thought. Finally, the thought produces an automatic feeling. For example, the nurse sees a patient in restless, thinks that she is in pain and confirms with the patient that she has correctly identified the need for help and to identify the nursing action appropriately to resolve it.

Nurse’s action 
Once the nurse has validated her reaction of the patient’s behavior through exploration with him, she can complete nursing process discipline with the nurse’s action. The nurse can act in two ways: automatic and deliberative. Automatic actions are ‘those decided upon for reactions other than the patient’s immediate needs. For example, the nurse gives the sedative to patient to sleep because the physician ordered it. But deliberate actions result from the correct identification of patient’s needs by validation of the nurse’s reaction to patient behavior. It fulfills her professional function

Professional function
Nurses often work with other professions and supposed to coordinate the patient care with them. Naturally, at times conflicts will arise between the actions appropriate to the nurse’s profession and those required by the job. Non professional actions of nurse leads to inadequate patient care. A well defined function of the profession can help to prevent and resolve the conflict.

Comparison of the Orlando’s process discipline and nursing process

It consists of seven phases. These are assessment, diagnosis, outcomes, plan of action, implementation and evaluation.

Assessment of the nursing process corresponds to the sharing of the nurse’s reaction to the patient behavior. The collection of data includes only information relevant to identifying patient’s need for help.

The product of the nursing process analysis is nursing diagnosis. The statement of the nursing process includes formally written problem related to etiological factors and signs and symptoms.

The outcome and plan of action phase involves writing outcomes, goals and objectives and deciding on appropriate nursing action.

The implementation phase involves the final selection of actions and carries out it. The evaluation phase asks whether the outcomes achieved or not.

This theory has much to offer to nursing. It guides nurses through their interactions with patients and ensure that they will be treated as individuals and focuses on patient’s needs rather than the demands of professional setting. Orlando should be considered as a nursing theorist who made significant contribution to the advanced nursing practice. She helped nurses to focus on patient needs rather than institutional demands. Here, nurse is viewed as a ‘care giver’ for the patient, not a ‘hand maiden’ for the physician. 

1 comment:

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