Family Centered Community Health Nursing and the Betty Neuman Systems Model

Abstract

Although the relationship of the use of models to the development of professional accountability is becoming increasingly evident in the nursing literature and although we are learning more about the relevance of certain models to certain approaches to nursing and to certain clinical settings, the idea of theoretical pluralism as a basis of curricular development and implementation is remarkably absent from the nursing literature. According to Roberts and Yaros (1984), a calendar review of seventeen baccalaureate programs in nursing in Canada reveals seven programs that have discernible models: four use adaptation and three use systems, self care and developmental theory respectively. There were no calendars reflecting the use of theoretical pluralism for direction in program design. In 1984, the School of Nursing at the University of Ottawa became committed to the notion of theoretical pluralism as a major underpinning for curricular development and implementation. Pluralism provides a global perspective and requires the acceptance of a paradigm that reflects the selection and use of multiple theories for nursing practice, in accordance with the demands of a situation (McGee, 1984). It assumes a variety of situations and a variety of approaches. Given the increasing complexity of nursing practice in our ever changing society, and given the fact that the setting in part determines the nature of nursing in that setting, it does not seem reasonable to assume that one conceptual framework is adequate to prepare students for beginning professional practice in a variety of situations. Dickoff and James (1978), in a paper entitled "New Views of Traditional Roles", discussed the nature of theoretical pluralism. Acknowledging the existence of a multiplicity of conceptions regarded as nursing theory, they recommended a purposeful theoretical pluralism rather than a search for unity.