THEORETICAL FOUNDATION IN NURSING
Sister Calista Roy “Adaptation Model”
History And Background
 Sister Callista Roy is a prominent
nurse theorist, writer, lecturer,
researcher and teacher.
 Professor and Nurse Theorist at the
Boston College of Nursing in
Chestnut Hill.
 Born in Los Angeles on October 14,
1939 as the 2nd child of Mr. and Mrs.
Fabien Roy.
 She entered the sisters of Saint
Joseph Carondelet.
 She earned a Bachelor of Arts with
Major in Nursing from Mount St.
Mary’s College, Los Angeles in 1963.
 She earned her Master’s Degree in
Pediatric Nursing from the University
of California, Los Angeles in 1966.
 She also earned a Master’s Degree
and PhD in Sociology in 1973 and
1977 respectively.
 Sister Callista Roy had the significant
opportunity of working with Dorothy
E. Johnson.
 Johnson’s work with focusing
knowledge for the discipline of
nursing convinced Sister Callista Roy
of the importance of describing the
nature of nursing as a service to
society and prompted her to begin
developing her model with the goal
of nursing being to promote
adaptation.
 She joined the faculty of Mount St.
Mary’s College in 1996, teaching
both pediatric and maternity nursing.
 She organized course content
according to a view of person and
family as adaptive systems.
 She introduced her ideas about
“Adaptation Nursing” as the basis for
an integral nursing curriculum.
 Model as a basis of curriculum
impetus for growth---Mount St.
Mary’s College.
 The model was implemented in
Mount St. Mary’s College.
 1971- She was made chair of the
Nursing Department at the College.
Overview of Roy’s Adaptation Model (RAM)
 The RAM provides a useful
framework for providing nursing care
for persons in health and in acute,
chronic, and terminal illness.
 The RAM views the person as an
adaptive system in constant
interaction with an internal and
external environment.
Roy Categorizes Environmental Stimuli As:
1. Focal stimulus
2. Contextual stimuli
3. Residual stimuli
Roy Categorizes the Coping Mechanisms
into Regulator or The Cognate Subsystems.
 Regulator subsystem occur through
neutral, chemical, and endocrine
processes. These are automatic
responses to stimuli.
 Cognator subsystem occur through
cognitive- emotive processes -
perceptual and information
processing, learning, judgment, and
emotion.
Four Adaptive Modes:
1. The physiological adaptive mode -
refers to the “way a person response
as a physical being to stimuli from
the environment”.
2. The self-concept adaptive mode -
refers to psychological and spiritual
characteristics of a person. It
incorporates two components:
3. The role function adaptive mode -
Refers to the primary, secondary, or
THEORETICAL FOUNDATION IN NURSING
Sister Calista Roy “Adaptation Model”
tertiary roles the person performs in
society.
4. The interdependence adaptive
mode- refers to the coping
mechanisms arising from close
relationship that result in “the giving
and receiving of love, respect, and
value”.
 Health: a state and process of being
and becoming integrated and whole
that reflects person and
environmental mutuality.
 Adaptation: the process and
outcome whereby thinking and
feeling persons, as individuals an in
groups, use conscious awareness and
choice to create human and
environmental integration.
Critical Thinking in The Roy’s Adaptation
Model (Ram)
 Roy has conceptualized the nursing
process to comprise the following six
simultaneous, ongoing, and dynamic
steps:
1. Assessment of behavior
2. Assessment of stimuli
3. Nursing diagnosis
4. Goal setting
5. Intervention
6. Evaluation