BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN NURSING

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS IN NURSING

COURSE MODULE COURSE UNIT WEEK
1 1 2

EVOLUTION OF NURSING THEORIES

✔ Read course and unit objectives

✔ Comprehend study guide prior to class attendance
✔ Understand required learning resources; refer to unit
terminologies for jargons
✔ Proactively participate in online discussions
✔ Participate in weekly discussion board (Canvas)
✔ Answer and submit course unit tasks on time

At the end of the course unit (CM), learners will be able to:
Cognitive:
1. Understand the different era of nursing theory as to Intuitive, apprentice, dark and
contemporary period.
2. Explain the different major changes and development in each period related to the nursing
practice.
Affective:
1. Show concerns and develop trusting relationship to the patient and family using the different
nursing theories.
2. Listen attentively during class discussions.
3. Demonstrate tact and respect when challenging other people’s opinions and ideas.
4. Accept comments and reactions of classmates on one’s opinions openly and graciously.
Psychomotor:
1. Apply safety risk and nursing process during administration of nursing procedures using the
different nursing theories.
2. Participate actively during class discussions.
3. Confidently express personal opinion and thoughts in front of the class.

I. Period of Intuitive Nursing (Prehistoric to early Christian era)

Nursing was untaught and instinctive
Performed out of compassion for others and desire to help others

Beliefs and Practices of Prehistoric Man

- Nursing was a function that belonged to women taking care of the children, the sick and the
aged. Believed that illness causes the invasion of evil spirit through the use of black magic
or voodoo. Believed that medicine man was called shaman or witch doctor having the
power to heal using white magic.
They also practiced “trephining” or drilling a hole in the skull with a rock or stone without
anesthesia as a last resort to drive evil spirits from the body. Contributions to Medicine and Nursing
Babylonia o Code of Hammurabi – provided laws that covered every facet of Babylonian life
including medical practice and recommended specific doctors for each disease and gave each
patient the right to choose between the use of charms, medications or surgical procedures.
A. Egypt
o Introduced the art of embalming
o Developed the ability to make keen observation and left a record of 250 recognized diseases
o Slaves and patient’s families nursed the sick
Israel
o Moses was recognized as the “Father of Sanitation” and wrote in Old Testament which:

China

- Believed that in using girl’s clothes for male babies keep evils away from them
- Prohibited the dissection of dead human body as a worship to ancestors
- They gave the world knowledge of material medica (pharmacology)
India

o Men of medicine built hospitals, practiced an intuitive form of asepsis and were proficient in the
practice of medicine and surgery
o Sushurutu made a list of function and qualifications of nurses. This was the first reference to
nurse’s taking care of the patient’s.

Ancient Greece

o Nursing was the task of untrained slave

o Introduced caduceus, the insignia of medical profession today
o Hippocrates was given the title of “Father of Scientific Medicine”. He made major advances in
medicine by rejecting the belief that diseases had supernatural causes. He also developed
assessment standards for clients, established overall medical standards, recognized a need for
nurses.

Rome

o The Romans attempted to maintain vigorous health, because illness was a sign of weakness
o Care of the ill was left to the slaves or Greek physicians. Both groups were looked upon as
inferior by Roman society.

II. Period of Apprentice Nursing (Founding of religious nursing orders to 1836 when
Kaiserwerth Institute for the training of Deaconesses in Germany was established)
a. Also called the period of “on the job” training.
 b. Nursing care was performed without any formal education and by people who were
directed by more experienced nurses
c. Religious orders of the Christian church were responsible for the development of this
kind of nursing.

Crusades
 Military religious orders established hospitals staffed with men
 Knights of Lazarus was founded and primarily for the nursing care of lepers in Jerusalem
after the Christians had conquered the city. Rise of Secular Orders
 Religious taboos and social restrictions influenced nursing at the time of the Religious
Nursing orders
 Older nuns prayed with and took good care of the sick, while younger nuns washed soiled
linens, usually in the rivers.
 In 16th century, hospitals were established for the care of the sick where hospitals were
gloomy, cheerless, airless and unsanitary. People entered hospitals only under compulsion
or as a last resort.
III. Period of Educated Nursing (From June 15, 1869 when Florence Nightingale School
of Nursing was opened until World War II)
1. The development of nursing during this period was strongly influenced by trends resulting
from wars, from an arousal of social consciousness, from the emancipation of women and
from the increased educational opportunities offered to women
2. Popularization of the philosophy of the Nightingale System
o Importance of nursing education
o Nurses teaching students
o Specialization developed
3. Facts about Florence Nightingale
o Recognized as the “Mother of Modern Nursing”
o Known also as the “Lady with a Lamp”
o Raised in England and learned languages, literature, mathematics and social graces
o Developed he self-appointed goal: “to change the profile of nursing”
o Led the nurses that took care of the wounded during the Crimean war
o Put down her ideas in two published books: Notes on Nursing and Notes on Hospitals
IV. Period of Contemporary Nursing (Period after World War II up to present)
a. Scientific and technological developments as well as social changes mark this period
b. Establishment of WHO
c. Use of atomic/nuclear energy for medical diagnosis and treatment
d. Utilization of computers
e. Use of sophisticated equipment for diagnosis and therapy
f. Health is perceived as a fundamental human right
g. Nursing involvement in community health is greatly intensified
 h. Development of the expanded role of nurses
i. Professionalization of nursing
Nursing in the Philippines Early Beliefs and Practices
j. Beliefs about causation of disease (evil spirits, enemy or a with)
k. People believed that evil spirits could be driven away by persons with powers to
expel demons
l. People believed in special gods of healing, with the priest-physician and Herbolarios
m. Superstitious beliefs and practices in relation to health and sickness such as
Herbmen or Herbicheros as one who practiced witchcraft
n. Persons suffering from diseases without identified cause were believed to be
bewitched by “mangkukulam”

V. Spanish Period

VI. The religious orders exerted their efforts to care for the sick by building hospitals in the
different parts of the Philippines
VII. Nursing during Philippine Revolution
VIII. Prominent persons involved in nursing works
a. Josephine Bracken – installed a first hospital in an estate house in Tejeros; provided
nursing care to the wounded night and day
b. Rosa Sevilla de Alvero – converted their house into quarters for the Filipino soldiers,
during the Philippine-American War that broke out in 1899.
c. Dona Hilaria de Aguinaldo – wife of Emilio Aguinaldo; organized Filipino Red Cross
under the inspiration of Apolinario Mabini
 d. Dona Maria Agoncillo de Aguinaldo – second wife of Emilio Aguinaldo; provided
nursing care to Filipino soldiers during revolution. President of Filipino Red Cross
branch in Batangas

e. Melchora Aquino – Nursed the wounded Filipino soldiers and gave them shelter and
food Capitan Salome – a revolutionary leader in Nueva Ecija; provided nursing care
to the wounded when not in combat
f. Agueda Kahabagan – revolutionary leader in Laguna, also provided nursing services
to her troops
g. Trinidad Tecson – “Ina ng Biac na Bato”, stayed in the hospital at Biac na Bato to
care for the wounded soldiers.
IX. Iloilo Mission Hospital School of Nursing (Iloilo City, 1906)
 a. It was run by the Baptist Foreign Mission Society of America. In March, 1944, 22
nurses graduated; in April 1944 graduate nurses took the first Nurses Board
Examination at the Iloilo Mission Hospital.
b. St Paul’s Hospital School of Nursing (Manila, 1907)
c. Established by the Archbishop of Manila, the Most Reverend Jeremiah Harty under
the supervision of the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartes. It was located in Intramuros
and it provided general hospital services with free dispensary and dental clinic
d. Philippine General Hospital School of Nursing (1907)
i. Anastacia Giron-Tupas, the first Filipino nurse to occupy the position of chief
nurse and superintendent in the Philippines ü St. Luke’s Hospital School of
Nursing (Quezon City, 1907)

Significance of Nursing Theory

Discipline vs. Profession

u Discipline is specific to academia and refers to a branch of education, a department of
learning, or a domain of knowledge.
Discipline vs. Profession
u Profession refers to a specialized field of practice founded on the theoretical structure of the
science or knowledge of that discipline and accompanying practice abilities.
 1. Period of Intuitive Nursing - Nursing was “untaught” and instinctive. It was performed of
compassion for others, out of the wish to help others .
2. Period of Apprentice Nursing - Nursing care was performed without any formal education
and by people who were directed by more experienced nurses
3. Period of Educated Nursing - The development of nursing during this period was
strongly influenced by trends resulting from wars, from an arousal of social
consciousness, from the emancipation of women and from the increased educational
opportunities offered to women
4. Period of Contemporary Nursing - Scientific and technological developments.

See details about the history of nursing theory in the Philippines.

- http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/search/basic?vid=0&sid=768836f6-8d36-4451-
9tbfc44584a929c7%40pdc-v-

1. Aligood, M. & Tomey, A. (2018) Nursing Theorists and their Work, 9 th edition, Singapore
2. McEwen, Melanie (2019) Theoretical Basis for Nursing, 5 th Ed. Wolters Kluwer

1. Research on the History of Nursing Profession and create a concept map entitled “Nursing
Through Time”. Concept mapping on how each period has undergone dramatic changes in
response to societal needs and influences
Submit the soft copy to CANVAS.