CHAPTER 8:

THE SELF-CARE DEFICIT

THEORY
GROUP 2
"INDIVIDUALS,
FAMILIES, GROUPS
AND COMMUNITIES
NEED TO BE
TAUGHT SELF
CARE"
-Dorothea Orem
I. DOROTHEA OREM
June 15, 1914
June 22, 2007
1934: Diploma from Providence Hospital School of Nursing,
Washington
1939: B.S Nursing Catholic Univ. of America
1945: M.S Nursing Education
Practiced Hospital nursing
1965: Dean of the school of Nursing
1971: Published Nursing: Concepts of Practice: outlined her theory
of nursing - Self-care Deficit Theory of Nursing
The International Orem Society was founded to foster research
and the continued development of Orem’s nursing theories.
Orem’s theories of nursing Recipient of Honorary Degrees
Inducted into American Academy of Nursing
Awardee: National League for Nursing and the Sigma Theta
Tau Nursing Honor Society
I. DOROTHEA OREM

She worked as a staff nurse, private duty

nurse, nurse educator and administrator and
nurse consultant. Her stint at the Indiana
State Board of Health forced Orem to think
about the structure of nursing practice.
Orem formulated her concept of nursing in
relation to self-care as part of a study on the
organization and administration of hospitals.
She published her ideas in Nursing Concepts
of Practice in 1971.
II.SELF CARE DEFICIT THEORY

Self-Care Deficit Theory defined Nursing as

“The act of assisting others in the
provision and management of self-care to
maintain or improve human functioning at
the home level of effectiveness.”

It focuses on each individual’s ability to

perform self-care, defined as “the practice
of activities that individuals initiate and
perform on their own behalf in maintaining
life, health, and well-being.”
 II.SELF CARE DEFICIT THEORY
Major Points
Achievement of optimal client self care so that
clients can achieve and maintain an optimal state of
health. Orem’s search for the meaning of nursing
was structured by three questions:
1. What do nurses do and what should nurses do as
practitioners of nursing?
2. Why do nurses do what they do?
3. What are the results from what nurses do as
practitioners of nursing?
This is turn led to the central concepts of the
theory.
II.OREM’S GENERAL THEORY OF NURSING IN
THREE RELATED PARTS :

Theory of Self- care

Theory of Self- care deficit
Theory of nursing system
 Self - care theory postulate that :

Self - care and self - care

of dependents are learned
behaviors.

Individuals initiate and

perform on their own
behalf to maintain life,
health, and well - being.
THEORY OF SELF - CARE
 Self - care deficit teaches
that people benefit from
nursing because they have
health - related limitations
in providing self - care.

Self - care deficit results

when self - care agency is
not adequate to meet the
known self - care demand.

THEORY OF SELF - CARE

DEFICIT
 Nursing system theory suggests that nursing
systems form when nurses prescribe, design,
and provide nursing care that relates to the
individual's self-care capabilities and meets
therapeutic self-care requirements.

THREE NURSING SYSTEMS EXIST

WITHIN THE MODEL:
1. Compensatory- the nurse provides total care

2. Partially compensatory system- the nurse

and the patient share responsibility for care

3. Supportive/Educative-development system-
the client has primary responsibility for
THEORY OF NURSING personal health, with the nurse acting as a
consultant
SYSTEMS
 NURSING IS AN ART, A HELPING
SERVICE, AND TECHNOLOGY

ACTIONS ARE DELIBERATELY

SELECTED AND PERFORMED BY
NURSES TO HELP INDIVIDUALS OR
GROUPS UNDER THEIR CARE TO
MAINTAIN OR CHANGE CONDITIONS
IN THEMSELVES OR THEIR
ENVIRONMENT.

IT ENCOMPASSES THE PATIENT'S

PERSPECTIVE OF HEALTH
CONDITION, THE PHYSICIAN'S
PERSPECTIVE, AND THE NURSING
PERSPECTIVE
 METAPARADIGM OF
OREM’S THEORY
NURSING
GOAL: Nursing is giving of direct
assistance to persons who are
unable to meet their self-care
needs, developed through nursing
education and experience
Provide ways of assisting, acting
for, guiding supporting, providing
a developmental environment and
teaching.
HEALTH
Health and healthy are terms used
to describe living things.
Wellness is the integrity of the
individual.
Illness results in the persons inability
to maintain self-care.
Health is when individual is
structurally and functionally
whole or sound that they are
considered healthy.
It includes that which makes a
person human, operating in
relation to its physiological and
psycho-psychological
mechanisms and a material
structure in relation to and
interacting with other human
beings.
 PERSONS
A person has the capacity to reflect,
symbolize and use symbols.
A person is a total being with
universal, developmental needs and is
capable of continuous self-care.
There is unity within a person that can
function biologically, symbolically and
socially.
Human being has health related or health
derived limitations that render him not
capable of continuous self-care or
independent care.
Human being with limitations that result in
ineffective / incomplete care is the one who
needs nursing care.
Human being is the focus of nursing only
when self-care requisites exceed self-care
capabilities.
 ENVIRONMENT
The components are
environmental factors,
environmental elements,
conditions, and developmental
environment.
Environment is the modern
society's values and
expectations.
III. SIGNIFICANCE THEORY
OF DOROTHEA OREM
Orem's self care deficit theory
provides a comprehensive base to
which nursing can be practice.
The beauty of Orem's theory is that it
specifies when nursing is actually
needed.
Orem's theory of the nursing system,
however, is applicable when the
person gets ill or sick.
 IV. CHAPTER SUMMARY
Orem's self-care deficit theory posits that people
possess, to one degree or another, the ability to
care for themselves, known as self- care
agency or ability, while they can also have self-care
demands or needs brought about by their disease,
injury or other infirmity or by reason of very old or
even very young age. When a person's self-care
demand exceeds his self-care agency, a self-care
deficit theory occura and the nurse has to
compensate. The degree of the deficit may vary
according to the patient's age and condition.
 THANK YOU!!
MEMBERS:

Beng-at, Stephen Isaac

Anital, Charmaine
Fernando, Lorraine Jenn
Hernandez, Krizzie Dhane
Librada, Heart
Machete, Ericka
Santos, Mikyla Shalkie
Vicente, Lyn