DOROTHEA Orem was born

in July 15, 1914 in Baltimore,

Maryland. Her father was a
construction worker and her
mother is a homemaker. She
was the youngest among two
daughters. In the early 1930s,
she earned her nursing diploma
from the Providence Hospital
School of Nursing in
Washington, D.C. She went on
to complete her Bachelor of
Science in Nursing in 1939 and
her Masters of Science in
Nursing in 1945, both from the
Catholic University of America
in Washington, D.C. She had a
distinguished career in nursing.
She earned several Honorary
The Self-Care Deficit Theory
was developed as a result of
Dorothea E. Orem between
1959 and 2001 working toward
her goal of improving the
quality of nursing in general
hospitals in her state. The
model interrelates concepts in
such a way as to create a
different way of looking at a
particular phenomenon. It can
be used by nurses to guide and
improve practice, but it must
be dependable with other
validated theories, laws and
principles. It is considered a
grand nursing theory, which
means the theory covers a
broad scope with general