This paper is designed to assist the student in achieving the following course objectives:
1. Analyze nursing conceptual models and theories for their application to nursing practice and research.
2.. Evaluate and summarize professional nursing literature which supports theoretically and conceptually derived practice solutions and research proposals.
3. Interpret nursing practice problems from the perspective of nursing theory.
Instructions:
1. Describe a nursing care situation that concerns you (clinical, educational, or managerial).
Please be specific. Don’t say in general that people need better pain management. Tell a story about someone who needed better care and didn’t receive it.
2. Present a scholarly description through the lens of one of the major nursing theories about how concepts in the theory might guide better outcomes around this situation. Please use primary sources! Do not use Nightingale for this paper. Include the way concepts in the nursing metaparadigm (person, health, environment, and nursing) inform the nurse as it relates to this situation and this theory.
3. Describe how research evidence informs the practice situation.
Look for research that supports your story – maybe something about pain, or communication, or respect for diversity, etc. It doesn’t have to use the nursing theory you are using for the paper. Cite at least three research articles.
4. How does this theory reflect your personal philosophy about the nursing situation?
Reflect on how you have grown in your understanding of theory since the beginning of this semester. How has your philosophy of nursing changed? Discuss ways in which nursing theory will help you to be an advanced practice nurse.
Format directions: This paper should be no longer than 5 pages, not including title page and reference page. References should demonstrate scholarship; use primary sources for theory when possible and include 3 research articles.
Begin your paper with a short narrative, specifically identifying the nursing situation you have experienced, then follow through with a scholarly description of the theory and its major concepts, and end by applying that theory to the specific situation in hopes of a better outcome for the patient and the nurse.
