?Virginia Henderson’s Nursing Theory:
Mr. Smith’s Patient Care

Virginia Henderson’s Nursing Theory:
Mr. Smith’s Patient Care
Virginia Henderson’s Nursing Theory Explained
Nursing Theory
Nursing is a profession were nurse’s care for people until they can care for themselves again. As nurse’s we constantly teach our patients so that there informed on how to be as independent as possible with their care. Caring for a patient so that a level of independence is reached is a key element in Virginia Henderson’s nursing theory.
Blais and Hayes (2011) described the definition of Virginia Henderson’s Nursing Theory as follows:
The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick, or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will, knowledge, and to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible. (p.101)
As Blais and Hayes (2011) noted Virginia Henderson’s theory focused on the “individual’s physiological and emotional balance, achieving independence, and the strength or need to achieve or maintain health” (p.100). Virginia Henderson’s theory empathized the importance of patient independence so that the patient will continue to progress after being released from the hospital. An important factor in the patient reaching independence is the nurse’s role. According to Blais and Hayes (2011) Henderson described the nurse’s role as “substitutive, which is doing for the patient; supplementary, which is helping the patient do something’ or complementary, which is working with the patient to do something” (pp. 100-101). Virginia Henderson’s Nursing Theory has four major concepts which focused on the individual, environment, health, and nursing. These concepts of individual, and environment, along with the 14 components of human basic needs are what I apply to th...