Nursing Theories and Contemporary Practices for Patient Care

Running head: NURSING
Topic: NURSING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1NURSING
The history involving professional nursing have begun with Florence Nightingale. As
nurses sought degrees involving higher education, the research emphasis era started to begin.
Mostly during the mid-century, more nurses embraced higher education and understood that
research was the path to nursing language. In the contemporary world, nurses have grown in
their professional status and the use of substantive knowledge (Aligood, 2017). Nursing
theories and their implications are important in healthcare as it helps nursing students to
apply to unique perspectives of nursing irrespective of origin and ultimately help nurses to
guide research and practice (Smith & Liehr, 2018). In the given essay, the historical
perspective of nursing pertaining to planning of care and involvement of the care plans in
nursing have been discussed. Moreover, contemporary patient care and the significance of
intensive care units have been highlighted with reference to Henderson’s model of need.
According to Sacco et al. (2015), the concept of intensive care arose from the
devastating polio epidemic in Copenhagen in 1952 requiring intensive care by critical care
nurses. Critical care nurses are mainly required for assessment of the patient’s condition,
assistance to physicians in performing procedures, observing and recording patient’s vital
signs and administering intravenous fluids and medications. The first ICU units were set up
in Europe due to the epidemic. Over the years, medical interventions pertaining to intensive
care have been more numerous requiring critical care nurses to care for pre as well as post-
operative patients. However, further developments have to be made as ICU patients care
especially vulnerable to iatrogenic harm. The ever increasing populations and co-morbidities
alongside increased obesity are the main reasons behind the increasing demand for ICU units
(Kelly et al. 2014). Care pathways have first been used in 1990s for assisting healthcare
professionals for delivering high quality evidence based as well as cost effective care.
Henderson’s need theory is applicable for nurses in providing a care plan as it is much close
to realism and will help nurses to improve standard of caring through assessment of the