SHORT INTRODUCTION

Faye Abdellah

Faye Glenn Abdellah was born on March 13, 1919.

Abdellah was the first nurse officer to be appointed to rear
admiral with two stars. She was the first woman and first nurse
to hold the position of Deputy Surgeon General. Her work
changed the focus of nursing from disease-centered to patient
Abdellah's Patient Assessment of Care Evaluation is now the
accepted standard in the United States.

EARLY LIFE
Faye Glenn Abdellah was born in New York City on
March 13, 1919. Her parents are Namadi Ben and Margaret
Abdellah. Faye had an incident which affected her life forever,
when she was 18 years old in 1937. She and her brother
witnessed the horrific crash of the German passenger airship
Hindenburg, as well as the burnt survivors. She felt powerless to
assist them and promised that she would never be unprepared
again if someone needed her aid. She then decided to pursue a
career as a nurse.

EDUCATION AND CAREER

Faye obtained a diploma in nursing from the Ann May School of Nursing in Neptune,
New Jersey, in 1942 She was a member of the Yale University faculty from 1945 to 1949. She
was expected to teach from the book 120 Principles of Nursing Practice in her role as a graduate
instructor. The National League for Nursing (NLN) produced this book in 1937 as part of the
nursing curriculum. The concepts were questioned by the students, and Abdellah has been unable
to find any scientific support for the rules. She gathered her colleagues in the university
courtyard and burned the books because she was frustrated.

Dr. Abdellah met Lucile Petry Leone, the founder of the Cadet Nurse Corps. Leone's
involvement influenced her decision to join the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps,
where she spent the following forty-one years. Her first few years were spent undertaking studies
and conducting research at a variety of hospitals in order to improve nursing practice. Abdellah
retired from the government in 2002 after more than 50 years of service.

HONORS AND AWARDS

Dr. Abdellah has received over 70 honorary degrees and awards, such as the American
Academy of Nursing's Living Legend Award in 1994.

NURSING THEORY
Dr. Abdellah's Twenty-one Nursing Problems typology contributed to the transition of
nursing from a disease-centered to a patient-centered profession. She is credited with major

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nursing advancements as a result of her theory, including the creation of the first nationwide
tested coronary care unit and the Patient Assessment of Care Evaluation (PACE) system of
standards for health care facilities.

THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS

The assumptions in Abdellah's "21 Nursing Problems Theory" relate to change and
expected changes in nursing; the need to acknowledge the interconnectedness of social
enterprises and social issues; the effect of problems like poverty, racism, pollution, education,
and so on on health and health care delivery; modifying nursing education; continuing education
for nursing professionals; and development of nursing leaders from underserved groups.

1. Learn to know the patient.

2. Sort out relevant and significant data.
3. Make generalizations about available data concerning similar nursing problems presented
by other patients.
4. Identify the therapeutic plan.
5. Test generalizations with the patient and make additional generalizations.
6. Validate the patient’s conclusions about his nursing problems.
7. Continue to observe and evaluate the patient over a period of time to identify any
attitudes and clues affecting this behavior.
8. Explore the patient’s and family’s reaction to the therapeutic plan and involve them in the
plan.
9. Identify how the nurse feels about the patient’s nursing problems.
10. Discuss and develop a comprehensive nursing care plan.

PRESENTATION OF CONCEPTS AND MODEL

Faye Glenn Abdellah created the Twenty-One Nursing Problems Theory. In that it relates
to a nursing diagnosis during a time when nurses were taught that diagnoses were not part of
their duty in health care, her nursing model was progressive for the time.

The Twenty-One Nursing Problems have distinct features that can be identified. The
concepts of health, nursing problems, and problem-solving are all intertwined in this philosophy.
Problem-solving is an activity that is by its very nature logical. Nursing practice and individual
patients are the center of the framework.

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 3 Components of 21 Nursing Problems

Health Nursing Problems Problem Solving Approach

Interaction of internal & Conditions faced by the The process of identifying

external forces to optimally patient and/or the family nursing problems and
use resources. which the nurse can assist interpreting, analyzing, and
him or them to meet through electing appropriate courses
the performance of her of action to solve these
personal function. The processes.
problem can be either an (Nursing Process)
overt or covert nursing
problem.

● An overt nursing
problem is an
apparent condition
faced by the patient or
family, which the
nurse can assist him or
them to meet through
the performance of
her professional
functions.

● The covert nursing

problem is a
concealed or hidden
condition faced by the
patient or family,
which the nurse can
assist him or them to
meet through the
performance of her
professional functions.

Nursing Problems are not the

problem of the patient, but
problems that nurses should
intervene in.

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21 Nursing Problems Theory

Faye Abdellah is well known for developing the “Twenty-One Nursing Problems Theory” that
has interrelated the concepts of health, nursing problems, and problem-solving. The 21 nursing
problems fall into three categories: physical, sociological, and emotional needs of patients; types
of interpersonal relationships between the patient and nurse; and common elements of patient
care. She used Henderson’s 14 basic human needs and nursing research to establish the
classification of nursing problems. In addition, patients’ needs are further divided into four
categories: basic to all patients, sustenance care needs, remedial care needs, and restorative care
needs.

Abdellah’s 21 Nursing Problems are the following:

Basic to all Patients

1. To maintain good hygiene and physical comfort.

2. To promote optimal activity: exercise, rest, sleep
3. To promote safety by preventing accidents, injuries, or other trauma and preventing the
spread of infection.
4. To maintain good body mechanics and prevent and correct the deformity.

Sustenance Care Needs

5. To facilitate the maintenance of a supply of oxygen to all body cells.

6. To facilitate the maintenance of nutrition for all body cells.
7. To facilitate the maintenance of elimination.
8. To facilitate the maintenance of fluid and electrolyte balance.
9. To recognize the physiologic responses of the body to disease conditions—pathologic,
physiologic, and compensatory.
10. To facilitate the maintenance of regulatory mechanisms and functions.
11. To facilitate the maintenance of sensory function.

Remedial Care Needs

12. To identify and accept positive and negative expressions, feelings, and reactions.
13. To identify and accept interrelatedness of emotions and organic illness.
14. To facilitate the maintenance of effective verbal and nonverbal communication.
15. To promote the development of productive interpersonal relationships.
16. To facilitate progress toward achievement and personal spiritual goals.
17. To create or maintain a therapeutic environment.
18. To facilitate awareness of self as an individual with varying physical, emotional, and
developmental needs.

Restorative Care Needs

19. To accept the optimum possible goals in the light of limitations, physical and emotional.
20. To use community resources as an aid in resolving problems that arise from an illness.
21. To understand the role of social problems as influencing factors in the cause of illness.

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MODEL

Faye Abdellah's work is a collection of difficulties expressed in terms of nursing-centered

services that are used to assess a patient's needs. The nursing-centered approach to client care
appears to be at odds with Abdellah's advocacy for a client-centered approach. Her willingness to
shift away from a disease-centered perspective reflects this.

In her attempt to enhance nursing practice to its appropriate relationship with restorative
and preventive approaches for satisfying whole client requirements, she appears to swing the
pendulum to the opposite pole, from disease to nursing orientation, while leaving the client in the
center.

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DEFINITIONS OF THE FOUR METAPARADIGM IN NURSING

1. Person

Abdellah describes people as having physical, emotional, and sociological needs.

She described the patient as the only justification for the existence of nursing and that
both the families and individuals are the recipients of nursing care.

2. Health

In Patient–Centered Approaches to Nursing, Abdellah describes health as a state

mutually exclusive of illness. Although Abdellah does not give a definition of health, she
speaks to “total health needs” and “a healthy state of mind and body” in her description
of nursing as a comprehensive service. She added that health, or achieving it, is the
purpose of nursing services.

3. Society/Environment

Society is included in “planning for optimum health on local, state, national, and
international levels”. The environment is the home or community from which the patient
comes. However, as she further delineated her ideas, the focus of nursing service is
clearly the individual.

4. Nursing

Nursing is a helping profession. In Abdellah’s model, nursing care is doing

something to or for the person or providing information to the person with the goals of
meeting needs, increasing or restoring self-help ability, or alleviating impairment. It
involves the use of a problem-solving approach with key nursing problems related to the
health needs of the people. Nursing is broadly grouped into the 21 problem areas to guide
care and promote use of nursing judgement. She considers nursing to be a comprehensive
service that is based on art and science which aims to help people, sick or well, cope with
their health needs.

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APPLICATION OF THE THEORY IN THE FIELDS OF PRACTICE AND RESEARCH

Dr. Abdellah's typology of 21 nursing problems is a conceptual model that focuses on the
needs of patients and the role of nurses in identifying difficulties using a problem-solving
method. Abdellah's work falls under the genre of nursing philosophy because it is based on
analysis, rationality, research, and logical argument rather than experiential techniques.
Abdellah's model can be classified as inductive because she derived observations from earlier
investigations that served as the foundation for her conceptualization.

The nurse will be able to provide meaning to each and every nursing action he or she
performs by using the scientific underpinning of the theory. The clinical practitioner could assess
the patient, make a nursing diagnosis, and arrange interventions using the 21 nursing problems
technique. Abdellah's major objective is to improve nursing education. She believed that as
nurses' education improves, so will their nursing practice. It shifted the profession's emphasis
from "disease-centered" to "patient-centered."

The patient-centered approach was designed to be effective in nursing practice since it

helps to organize and structure what was frequently a disorderly collection of nursing care
experiences. The nursing problem was based on the needs of the individual, and a typology of
nursing treatment and nursing goals were developed as a basis for determining and arranging
nursing care. Client-centered care highlights the idea that every nursing focus should be to treat
the patient rather than just the condition.

Her theories continue to direct researchers to concentrate on the body of nursing

knowledge itself, the identification of patient problems, the organization of nursing interventions,
nursing education enhancement, and the structuring of the curriculum. The considerable
investigation into the patient's requirements and difficulties laid the groundwork for the
establishment of what are now known as nursing diagnoses. Abdellah's typology established the
foundation for developing the nursing care model, which was subsequently used to establish the
staffing outline in clinical settings.

Dr. Abdellah's overall contribution to nursing is the development of professional

autonomy and identity through the development of the 21 nursing difficulties. Her
problem-solving method improves our assessment and critical-thinking skills, which are
necessary for correctly planning, selecting, and implementing healthcare. It also stimulates
nurse-patient connection since we place the patient at the center of our care rather than the other
way around.

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REFERENCES:

Affairs, S.H.U.S.U.E. (2017, March 2). Dr. Faye G. Abdellah dies at 97. DC Military. Retrieved
October 9, 2021, from
https://www.dcmilitary.com/journal/features/dr-faye-g-abdellah-dies-at-97/article_9910c8ac-de2
9-5868-9e71-5073bde74c2f.html.

Faye Abdellah. Faye Abdellah - Nursing Theorist. (2011). Retrieved October 9, 2021, from
http://www.whyiwanttobeanurse.org/nursing-theorists/faye-abdellah.php.

Faye Abdellah. Nursing Theory. (2019, September 18). Retrieved October 9, 2021, from
https://nursing-theory.org/nursing-theorists/Faye-Abdellah.php.

Lucy, Dahlstrom, S., & Vera, M. (2021, March 5). Faye Abdellah: 21 nursing problems
theory. Nurseslabs. Retrieved October 9, 2021, from
https://nurseslabs.com/faye-g-abdellahs-21-nursing-problems-theory/.

Major concepts of the theory. Faye Abdellah. (n.d.). Retrieved October 9, 2021, from
http://fayeabdellah.blogspot.com/p/majorcconcepts-of-theory.html.