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Nurse Theorists & Nursing Theories

This guide is a resource on finding materials on prominent nurse theorists and nursing theories

Self-Care Deficit Theory

  • Defined Nursing: “The act of assisting others in the provision and management of self-care to maintain/improve human functioning at home level of effectiveness.”
  • Focuses on activities that adult individuals perform on their own behalf to maintain life, health and well-being.
  • Has a strong health promotion and maintenance focus.
  • Identified 3 related concepts:
  1. Self-care - activities an Individual performs independently throughout life to promote and maintain personal well-being.
  2. Health - results when self-care agency (Individual’s ability) is not adequate to meet the known self-care needs.
  3. Nursing System - nursing interventions needed when Individual is unable to perform the necessary self-care activities

Library Resources

Use the Databases and Articles tab in this LibGuide to look for more articles. Search by the theorist's name or theory and once you have located some useful articles, look at Subject Terms or Keywords within the individual articles for more suggestions on search terms. Some databases may have links near the article titled More like this or Find Similar Results that might be helpful to you.

Always look at the list of References; Works Cited; or the Bibliography found at the end of any particularly useful article for other books, articles, videos, etc., and then consult our SingleSearch to see if they might be available.

Additionally, don't forget that you can ask a librarian for assistance.