Nursing Paradigms: Grand Nursing Theories

Nurses use theory to help guide them in their nursing practice. Paradigms are the way we look at knowledge in a discipline such as nursing (McEwen & Wills, 2014). They take into account different values. Grand nursing theories utilize three paradigms: human needs, interactive and unitary process. These paradigms take into account the nature of human beings and how they do, or do not, interact with their environment and health care providers.
The human needs paradigm evaluates basic human needs and utilizes the scientific method to analyze the nursing practice. The problem is identified and using scientific understanding a treatment is determined and appropriate intervention is provided. This paradigm views humans as the sum of its parts and assumes that change is predictable as humans survive and adapt. Nursing’s role is to identify stressors and provide interventions to treat the patient. For example, the patient admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure has
The nurse must understand how the environment and person interact in order to provide care for them. One cannot view just the parts of a person and provide interventions to one specific problem. For example, treatment of the patient with congestive heart failure does not consist merely of a diuretic, but one must see how the condition affects the patient’s whole being. We must ask how the patient’s environment may have played a role in the exacerbation of their condition and what change we can provide to the environment to reduce the risk of an exacerbation. The unitary process not only describes how the nurse interacts with the patient, but also has an understanding of how the condition affects the whole person and how the environment plays a role in the condition and the patient’s