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Introduction
Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Deficit Theory (SCDT) has been proposed as a conceptual model for nursing practice. Because the immediate goal of a conceptual model is to guide practice (Riehl & Roy, 1974), evaluation of a model's usefulness in practice is a necessary and important step. Although a model may be potentially useful in a specific and well-defined setting, its ultimate usefulness depends on whether nurses are able to adapt it to their settings. Therefore, the purpose of this preliminary study was to determine if graduates from a baccalaureate nursing program with a curriculum based on Orem's SCDT, continued to use and were able to adapt the SCDT to their individual practices which included a variety of settings.
Review of the Literature
Orem's SCDT of nursing is based on the premise that all individuáis are capable of self-care. According to Orem, "self-care" consists of actions that individuals freely and deliberately initiate and perform on their own behalf in maintaining life, health, and weìl-being (Orem, 1985). The nurse's actions are directed toward assisting the patient to assume responsibility for self-care.
Orem identifies a two-step nursing process in achieving the goal of self-care. The first step includes identifying and prioritizing the client's unmet self-care needs (deficits). The second step consists of selecting methods of assisting the client to compensate for or overcome his self-care deficits.
The structure and content of Orem's SCDT has been developed and refined over the past two decades (Chang, 1980; Harrington, 1984; Porter, 1983). Examples for its use in a variety of settings have been suggested and described. For instance, Mullin (1980) implemented the SCDT in the acute care setting. Although hospital constraints were identified which limited its implementation, Mullin suggests that by "... internalizing the self-care concept and consciously translating it into practice, the nurse can modify the effects of the constraints." Neufeld and Hobbs (1985) established a health counseling service for senior citizens based on Orem's SCDT.
Using the self-care model, they developed a health assessment guide.
Woolery (1983) used Orem's SCDT with obstetrical patients. She found that the conceptual model allowed the nurse to operate ". . . within a client-centered system which encourages the individual to be responsible for her own care" (p.37). Eichelberger et al. (1980) used Orem's...