Orem's Self-Care Theory for Chronic Illness Patients

Orem’s self-care theory emphasizes the importance of individuals taking responsibility for their health and well-being, especially for chronic illness patients. It provides key concepts such as self-care maintenance, monitoring, and management, which enable patients to make informed choices and seek timely treatment. This theory is simple, patient-centered, and cost-effective, making it a popular choice among nurses and healthcare providers.

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Orem’s self-care theory is characterized by the wholeness of the developed human
structures and also the functioning of the body and the mind. It includes interpersonal, physical,
social and psychological aspects of a human being with the major assumption being that people
should take responsibility and be self-reliant by taking care of themselves and their families. The
clinical setting of this theory is that it is incorporated fully into the practices resulting to positive
changes on the health of an individual with chronic illness, helping the patients accept the reality
and also take responsibility for their health and the related concerns and also allowing the
patients to seek the treatment needed to contain the illness (Yamashita, 2014). The main
importance of Orem’s self-care theory is that it takes good care of the patients at the right time
with the appropriate decision for the patient’s quick recovery so that they decrease the hospital
stay.
Self-care theory was based on the fact that all individuals are capable of taking care of
themselves, according to Orem, self-care theory consists the actions that people deliberately and
freely perform and initiate on their own in maintaining life, well-being, and health. The actions
of the nurses were focused on assisting the patients in assuming their responsibility in self-care.
Orem then identified a two-step process of nursing aimed at achieving the self-care goal. Step
one was prioritizing and identifying the patients’ self-care needs that haven’t been met, known as
deficits, and the second step consisted of the methods of helping the clients overcome their self-
care deficits or even compensate them (Taylor, 2018). Also, Orem said that the individuals’
knowledge of any potential problems in his health is very necessary and very crucial in
promoting self-care behaviors. However, the content and the structure of Orem’s self-care has
been refined and developed over the past decades. Orem’s self-care theory evolved from the
quest of greater understanding that she had, of nursing nature where she specifies on how the

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nurses could promote self-care by assessing its demands, deficits, and abilities so as to support
the patients in their self-care.
There are various bases as to why I chose this theory. One of them is the fact that, not
only does it provide for the patient with chronic illness, to take care of his or herself, it also
allows nursing intervention in case there is an imbalance between self-care abilities and self-care
needs. It also codifies the processes and the behaviors used by the patients with these illnesses
(Wilkinson & Whitehead, 2015). This theory also embraces all the professionals in the health
care system as they believe that the professionals understand the processes that are used by the
chronic patients in performing self-care where this information can be used to identify the
struggles that the patients are going through. This information is also used to come up with
tailored interventions that will improve chronic illness patients’ outcomes.
Another reason is that it provides key concepts that are important to this kind of
patients (Timmins & Horan, 2017). One of the concepts is self-care maintenance which enables
chronic illness’ patients maintain their physical and emotional stability through self-
determination behaviors or recommendations that are agreed upon by the patients and the
healthcare provider. The other concept is self-care monitoring which involves the patients
monitoring themselves observing whether there are changes in their signs or symptoms. This will
allow the patients to rush to the health care providers if they notice any undesirable sign that
could get worse if left untreated. The last concept is self-care management which focuses on the
response of the patients to the signs. This concept entails the evaluation of the treatment needed
and the implementation of that treatment (Riegel et.al, 2012). These concepts give the nurses and
the healthcare providers the opportunity to raise awareness about chronic illnesses and informing
people about the various symptoms to watch for potentially saving the lives.

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Orem’s self-care theory is simple due to many reasons. One of them is that it only takes
one individual with a personal experience with any chronic disease that the nurses could use him
to raise more awareness as individuals tend to listen to people who have personal experience
with the illnesses and take a precaution which increases self-care quality. Also, nurses choose
this theory as it has successful outcomes in most cases as it stabilizes the illness, wellbeing,
quality of life and health of many patients (Hartweg, 2016). This is due to the increase in the
perceived control over chronic illness followed by the decrease the anxiety that is associated with
the illness. These patient-centered outcomes and the simplicity on how they are achieved proves
to be very important to the theory of self-care as it leads to decrease in cost, hospitalization, and
mortality capturing the attention of the nurses and also the health economists.
Self-care theory is focused on the patients’ needs as it gives them understanding and the
knowledge needed to evaluate their conditions which enable them to make informed choices on
the response to take when it’s needed. By monitoring themselves helps the patients achieve
emotional and physical stability. For patients with chronic illness, recognizing any sign or
symptom allows the process of decision making to begin trying to figure out the action that is
needed (Simmons, 2011). When detected early and their seriousness is well understood by the
health providers, action can be taken before it escalates which will save the patients’ lives and
resources. Therefore this theory puts the patients’ needs before anything else as it enables them
to get the best treatment there is to prevent the situation from escalating and to make sure that it
doesn’t return.

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This theory is understandable as individuals are well aware of how they should handle
and take care of themselves when they are stable without moving into illness care where they
know the responses and the type of decisions to make when they notice any undesirable
symptom so as to contain it. Chronic diseases are noticeable in their early stages through some
signs and symptoms that start to show (Katherine & Taylor, 2013). Through self-care
monitoring, an individual is able to notice them where he seeks the relevant treatment needed
which enables it to be contained. This indicates that Orem’s self-care theory fits very in the
management and containment of chronic diseases through self-monitoring.

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References
Hartweg, D. L. (2016). Health promotion self‐care within Orem's general theory of nursing.
Journal of Advanced Nursing, 15(1), 35-41.
Katherine Renpenning, M., & Taylor, S. G. (2013). Self-care theory in nursing: Selected papers
of Dorothea Orem. Springer Publishing Company.
Riegel, B., Jaarsma, T., & Strömberg, A. (2012). A middle-range theory of self-care of chronic
illness. Advances in Nursing Science, 35(3), 194-204.
Simmons, L. (2011). Dorthea Orem's self-care theory as related to nursing practice in
hemodialysis. Nephrology Nursing Journal, 36(4).
Taylor, S. G., Geden, E., Isaramalai, S. A., & Wongvatunyu, S. (2018). Orem's self-care deficit
nursing theory: its philosophic foundation and the state of the science. Nursing Science
Quarterly, 13(2), 104-110.
Timmins, F., & Horan, P. (2017). A critical analysis of the potential contribution of Orem's self-
care deficit nursing theory to contemporary coronary care nursing practice. European
Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 6(1), 32-39.
Wilkinson, A., & Whitehead, L. (2015). Evolution of the concept of self-care and implications
for nurses: a literature review. International Journal of nursing studies, 46(8), 1143-
1147.
Yamashita, M. (2014). The exercise of self-care agency scale. Western Journal of Nursing
Research, 20(3), 370-381.