NR 510 Week 2 Theory and the APN Role Discussion

Sample Answer

According to Karnick (2014), nursing theory provides the ethics and beliefs that guide practice and help generate nursing knowledge. When nurses purposefully form their care around a particular theory, clinical practice takes place (Karnick, 2014).

Karen should learn nursing theories because she will need the information to guide her care of the patient. Nursing theory is very important to APN practice because it provides nurses with the foundation and principles of the profession. The four main paradigms— person, health, environment, and nursing—that drive nursing theory aim to promote patient wellness.

Also, learning nursing theory encourages critical thinking and suggests ways to relate the fundamentals of nursing to the actual practice of nursing (Karnick, 2014). Nursing theory is useful in many areas of nursing to include clinical, community health, legislative, administrative, educational, legal, etc.

These theories provide invaluable knowledge that Karen can use to construct new knowledge. Nursing theory will teach Karen about the importance of evidence-based practice and how it relates to the decision-making process for patient care and patient values.

Karen’s concerns about the nursing theory being too broad should be addressed. While she is right, let’s put the reason why into context. As a new graduate nursing student, Karen will learn the theories are broad because there is more than one way to explain how to administer patient care or how to communicate with colleagues.

There are multiple ways to display leadership and to educate oneself about new health processes, diseases, patient concerns, and all things dealing with nursing. Nursing theory is confusing at times because there are so many theories to learn. However, this should be viewed as a positive because it inspires a sharing of ideas and nursing practices. There is no singular way to provide the best patient care, and Karen can use many of the theories to enhance her clinical expertise.

She can also compare nursing theories with current external clinical evidence and research to extract the most useful information to provide better patient care. The lack of agreement in the professional literature on nursing theory does not diminish the value of the theories nor does it make the theories irrelevant to practice. What the lack of agreement does is create dialogue and promote more evidence-based research.

Karnick (2014) states eliminating nursing theory in the classroom will “degrade nursing as a viable profession.” The discipline of nursing needs these theories to guide effective patient care, or nursing will be just another set of actions or tasks that is not valued or needed by patients and their families (Karnick, 2014).

Reference

• Karnick, P. M. (2014). A case for nursing theory in practice. Nursing Science Quarterly, 27(2), 117. Retrieved from http //journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0894318414522711