Julianne B.

Bayhon
11-J

Virginia Henderson’s most valuable contribution to today’s nursing in areas of:

Practice:

She developed the Nursing Need Theory to define the unique focus of nursing practice.
The theory focuses on the importance of increasing the patient’s independence to hasten
their progress in the hospital. Henderson’s theory emphasizes on the basic human needs
and how nurses can assist in meeting those needs. In summary, Henderson’s theory
entails that:

 Assists nurses, whose primary function is being the direct caregiver to the patient,
in finding an immediate reward in patient’s progress from dependence to
independence.

 Helps nurses make every effort to understand the patient when he or she lacks
will, knowledge, or strength.

 Henderson’s approach to patient care was deliberative and involved decision

making.

 Utilizes nursing process (assessment, planning, implementation, & evaluation) as

the problem-solving process and is not peculiar to nursing.

Education:

 She proposed nursing program and the nursing books she authored like the Textbook of
the Principles and Practice of Nursing, Basic Principles of Nursing Care and Nature of
Nursing, which served as nursing classics and the guiding light on the practice of
nursing.

 She analyzed the curricula of the usual 4 year nursing program in USA and categorized
the courses into (1) the humanities, (2) the biological and physical sciences, (3) the social
sciences, and (4) the medical and nursing arts and sciences. The growing variation among
programs offered by schools of nursing results to different roles of a nurse assumed in
health care setting. This is the reason why Henderson (1977) proposed a basic nursing
program.
 Henderson (1977) gave emphasis on interdisciplinary education and fostering a
humanistic concept of health care. The basic nursing curriculum which includes social
and bio-physical sciences has three natural stages of learning. The first stage is devoted in
assisting patient to meet his activities of daily living, the second stage focuses on
symptomatic nursing or common physical and emotional dysfunctions and third stage
integrates care to the different developmental stages and whole life span of an individual.

Research:

 Henderson's career in research began when she joined the Yale School of Nursing as
Research Associate in 1953 to work on a critical review of nursing research. Her findings
indicated that most nursing research studied nurses, not nursing care. A series of
editorials she wrote for professional journals helped stimulate the reorientation of nursing
research which became much more clinical. Her most formidable achievement was a
research project in which she gathered, reviewed, catalogued, classified, annotated, and
cross-referenced every known piece of research on nursing published in English,
resulting in the four-volume “Nursing Research: Survey and Assessment,” written with
Leo Simmons and published in 1964, and her four-volume “Nursing Studies Index,”
completed in 1972.

 She developed The Nursing Process as Applied to Henderson’s Needs Theory which
comprises the Henderson’s 14 components and definition of nursing along with the
nursing process.

Administration:

 Henderson’s Needs Theory can be applied to nursing practice as a way for nurses to set
goals based on Henderson’s 14 components. Meeting the goal of achieving the 14 needs
of the client can be a great basis to further improve one’s performance towards nursing
care. In nursing research, each of her 14 fundamental concepts can serve as a basis for
research although the statements were not written in testable terms.
References:
Christiane Reimann Prize. (n.d.). Christiane Reimann Prize. Retrieved July 27, 2014, from
https://www.icn.ch/about-icn/christiane-reimann-prize/Home. (n.d.). AAHN Gravesites of
Prominent Nurses. Retrieved July 27, 2014, from
https://www.aahn.org/gravesites/henderson.html

Kim, H.S. (2010). The Nature of Theoretical Thinking in Nursing (Third Edition). New York:
Springer Publishing Company.

Mcg, R. (1996, March 21). Virginia Henderson, 98, Teacher of Nurses, Dies. The New York
Times. Retrieved July 27, 2014, from https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/22/arts/virginia-
henderson-98-teacher-of-nurses-dies.html

McBride, A.B. (nd). In Celebration of Virginia Avenel Henderson. Retrieved June 12, 2011,
from http://healthsci.clayton.edu/eichelberger/in_celebration_of_virginia_avene.htm.

McEwen, M., & Wills, E. (2007). Theoretical Basis for Nursing (Second Edition). Philippine
Edition: Lippincott Williams & William.

McMahon, R. , & Pearson, Allan. (1998). Nursing as Therapy (Second Edition). United
Kingdom: Nelson Thornes.

Nicely, Bruce, DeLario and Ginger. (2011). Virginia Henderson's principles and practice of
nursing applied to organ donation after brain death. Progress in Transplantation. North American
Transplant Coordinators Organization provided by ProQuest & InforLearning Company.
Retrieved June 12, 2011, from
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4117/is_201103/ai_n57242444/?tag=mantle_skin;content.

Octaviano, E. and Balita, C. (2008). Theoretical Foundations of Nursing: The Philippine

Perspective. Manila: Ultimate Learning Series.