Neuman Systems Model
Betty Neuman is a nursing theorist who has immensely contributed and still contributes to the improvement of the nursing profession and practice. I chose Betty Neuman as my nursing theorist as she developed one of the most influential nursing care theories; The Neuman Systems Model. Betty Neuman has also dedicated her life to improving the Neuman systems model to ensure that nursing in the current and future practice will be able to provide holistic care to patients. Betty Neuman has continuously utilized nurse-related evidence and facts from other theories, nursing research and philosophy, and her own experiences in clinical practice and as a nurse educator to develop the Neuman Systems Model. The Neuman Systems Model is also one of the leading theories that have been adopted to support the nursing curriculum globally.
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Development of the Neuman Systems Model
Theorizing Stage
I, Betty Neuman, can trace the development of the Neuman Systems Model from my old days living on my father’s farm in Lowell, Ohio. My father died aged 36. My mother was a self-trained midwife. The love and motivation to get into nursing practice were motivated by my experiences while caring for my sick father and my mother’s commitment to her midwifery practice. However, I did not get directly into nursing. I initially worked as an aircraft instrument technician during World War II before getting my first registered nurse diploma in 1947.
Between 1947 and 1970, I worked in different positions within healthcare and in furthering my nursing education. I worked as a hospital nurse, a school nurse, an industrial nurse, and a clinical instructor. I received my bachelor’s degree in public health and psychology in 1957, my master’s degree in mental health and public health consultation in 1966, and my Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1985.
I developed my first community mental health program for students in Los Angeles between 1967 and 1973. During this time, I noted that my students within the mental health program only understood the medical model and viewed mental illness from a physical health perspective. The medical model of mental illness holds that mental health problems and disorders have physical causes like other health conditions (Huda, 2021). Due to being taught under the medical mental, the students did not relate the illness to other factors such as stress and the person’s environment. I realized there was a need to develop a model nursing conceptual model that would help students develop knowledge of the various patient variables and the uniqueness of each patient that determine health besides the medical model.
Development of the Concepts and Statements of the Neuman Systems Model
I have always viewed nurses as unique healthcare professionals who need to understand all client variables that affect how they respond to stress. The current and future nursing practices need to move from the medical model to adopt a model that focuses on the patient’s health by considering the physiological, psychological, sociocultural, developmental, and spiritual aspects of their health. I held the view that patients were termed as clients to the care providers as open, complex, and multifaceted systems that had unique responses to the various stressors within their environment. The health of the client is defined by the exchange of energy between the unique client variables, stressors, and their level of response to these stressors and the exchange of energy. I integrated various concepts that interrelate to define the human being, the environment, health, nursing, and the open system.
To me, the human being is an open system. The open system is complex. It constantly changes as it interacts with the stressors and forces within its internal and external environments. These interactions are both inputs and outputs and result in processes and feedback. The environment is the critical factor that affects the human being’s functioning. I classified it as internal; existing within the human being, external, existing outside the human being, and created; the unconscious environment that supports the human being’s levels of protection. Health, to me, is the level at which the human being’s system’s needs are met. It moves from a continuum of wellness to illness. I viewed nursing as the interventions that react to the system’s reaction to stressors within their environment. Nursing helps the human being’s system to adapt, adjust, restore, or maintain a stable relationship with the stressors within its environment.
I viewed the human being’s system as a basic structure that includes all the factors critical to its survival. The system can be broken down into five variables that essentially determine the system’s stability. These variables include the physiological with refers to basically the structure and how the physical body functions, the psychosocial referring to mental processes, perception and development of relationships, sociocultural spiritual referring to the response of the human being’s system’s interactions and response to social and cultural factors, and the influence of the factors on health, developmental factors that relate to progressive developmental processes, and the spiritual variables referring to an individual belief system and their influence on health.
I viewed the system to have three levels of protective defense against intrapersonal and extra-personal stressors; the flexible line of defense, the normal line of defense, and the resistance line of defense. The flexible line of defense is responsible for protecting the normal line of defense against environmental stressors. In contrast, the normal line of defense is unique across all clients and adapts to environmental changes to determine wellness. The line of resistance is the last line of defense and is activated as the system’s reaction to symptoms after the stressors have penetrated the normal line of defence. This may result in illness requiring prevention and interventions.
I believe prevention as an intervention occurs on three levels; primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. The primary prevention, in my take, occurs before the penetration of the system’s defences by stressors. It seeks to strengthen the system’s defences and maintain system stability. It can be achieved through health promotion. Secondary prevention is provided as the system reacts to stressors causing symptoms. Health care services provided at this level aim to manage the symptoms; they aim to strengthen the lines of resistance and support the system to regain stability. The tertiary prevention level is provided after the system stabilizes post-secondary prevention. The tertiary prevention should be designed to fully achieve stability and return to primary prevention.
Testing of the Neuman Systems Model
I designed the Neuman Systems Model with a focus on prevention levels to make it applicable in multiple health disciplines to facilitate the provision of consistent patient care. I believe that the use of models has changed the face of nursing, and I think we have enough validation and verification of their importance at this point.
My model has been applied in healthcare and nursing and has been tested and continues to be validated using empirical methods. Neuman systems model has been widely used as a guide in clinical nursing practice and as a theoretical framework as a guide for nursing education (Zhang et al., 2022). For instance, a study by Kim et al. (2020) testing the responses of unmarried mothers using Neuman’s Systems Model noted that the model improved the understanding of stress in unmarried mothers and the development of effective stress interventions.
In a different study, Akhlaghi et al. (2020) applied Neuman’s systems model as a modifier for stressors during a randomized clinical trial of the coronary artery bypass graft. They concluded that the model effectively moderated and reduced the occurrence of stress in patients with coronary artery bypass grafts. Another study by Pestana-Santos et al. (2021) focused on applying the Neuman systems model in the provision of perioperative nursing care for adolescent patients with idiopathic scoliosis. They noted that the model was useful in the assessment and recognition of stressors in adolescents due to surgery and improved the nursing process.
Evaluation of the Neuman Systems Model
My model is not complete, and I expected it to be under continuous improvement as researchers and critics work on it. This will further improve the definition of terminologies, delineation of the defence lines, and further differentiation of interpersonal and extrapersonal stressors. Despite the cons related to the Neuman systems model, research evidence has identified it as a good guide in the provision of required healthcare services within a community (Akhlaghi et al., 2020). Critics, researchers, academics, and academics have viewed my model as the most flexible as it has been successfully implemented in nursing practice, healthcare administration, and medical and nursing education. The model’s emphasis on the basic system’s structure and the levels of prevention as an intervention make it generalizable in care for individuals, in family care, at the community level, and nationally.
References
Akhlaghi, E., Babaei, S., & Abolhassani, S. (2020). Modifying Stressors Using Betty Neuman System Modeling in Coronary Artery Bypass Graft: a Randomized Clinical Trial. Journal of Caring Sciences, 9(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.34172/JCS.2020.003
Huda, A. S. (2021). The medical model and its application in mental health. International Review of Psychiatry (Abingdon, England), 33(5), 463–470. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2020.1845125
Kim, S., Bang, K. S., Lee, G., Lim, J., Jeong, Y., & Song, M. K. (2020). Stressors and Stress Responses of Unmarried Mothers Based on Betty Neuman’s Systems Model: An Integrative Review. Child Health Nursing Research, 26(2), 238–253. https://doi.org/10.4094/CHNR.2020.26.2.238
Pestana-Santos, M., da Silva Reis Santos, M., Cabral, I. E., Sousa, P. C., & de Lurdes Lopes de Freitas Lomba, M. (2021). Neuman Systems Model in perioperative nursing care for adolescents with juvenile idiopathic scoliosis. Revista Da Escola de Enfermagem Da USP, 55, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1980-220X2020001703711
Zhang, H.-M., Li, W.-J., Ma, H.-M., & Li, Y. (2022). ARTICLE Food Therapy and Health Care Visual analysis of the research hotspots of Neuman systems model in recent 20 years. Traditional Medicine Research Journal, 161–169. https://doi.org/10.12032/FTHC20201103
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Question
Directions
In this assignment, you are going to explore how a nurse theorist of your choice created their theory. You will become the theorist immersing yourself in the writings from the earliest mentioned to the most current literature. Writing in the voice of the theorist (taking on the persona of the theorist), you will create the theory through the following four stages.
Neuman Systems Model
In the first stage, theorizing occurs. This is where you, as the theorist, identify the concepts of what nursing is and is not. Perhaps you questioned what concepts were guiding those in nursing practice and then started to question your role. You started asking yourself, “Where am I in nursing, and where the profession is going? Is there some overarching understanding that guides the professional in his or her practice?” This is where you recognize that a theory is needed.
In the second stage, syntax is developed. This is where you will define the terms, explain the relationships between the terms, and examine their expansion. Syntax development is an evolution. Consider, for example, Jean Watson. She starts by defining the word “caring.” Within the last several years, she has refined her terminology changing the term caring to caritas and identified the relationships between terms. This demonstrates a growth and maturation from decades of research she and other scholars did to produce the theory of caring.
The third stage is theory testing. Here, the theorists and other researchers consider whether this theory helps answer questions that arise in nursing. This is where your theory is used by a widening group of researchers. For example, graduate nursing students request to use the tool you developed while testing your theory in an area of nursing.
The fourth and last stage is evaluation. This is where the theory is used in practice with the goal of improving healthcare. It is evidenced in the development of policies, procedures and best practice standards that have evolved from theory implementation.
Assignment Details
Begin your paper with an introductory paragraph that describes why you chose this theorist. First person voice (I, me, etc.) is acceptable in this paper.
Write in the first person voice (I, me, our, etc.) as the theorist. For example: I, Dr. Jean Watson, found that caring was a core concept of how I viewed nursing. To me, caring is the essence of nursing.
Use the four stages (theorizing, syntax, theory testing, and evaluation) to explain how your theory was developed and used in nursing.
In the first (theorizing) stage, provide the historical context that influenced the theorist’s thinking.
In the second (syntax) stage, describe the development of the concepts and statements.
In the third (theory testing), provide two (2) examples of research examining the theory.
In the fourth (evaluation), provide three (3) examples of how the theory has been used in practice and a brief evaluation of the theory.
Consult the Grading Rubric for this Assignment found in the course resources for further detailed expectations.
Assignment Requirements
Page requirements are a minimum of four (4) pages with no more than six (6) pages of content, not including the title and reference pages.
It is expected that you have a minimum of five (5) sources of support.
Utilize spelling and grammar check to minimize errors.
Your writing Assignment should:
follow the conventions of Standard English (correct grammar, punctuation, etc.);
be well ordered, logical, and unified, as well as original and insightful;
display superior content, organization, style, and mechanics; and