and quality of care required (Orem, 1985). This in-
sight provided Orem with an answer to the ques-
tion, “What is nursing’s phenomenon of concern?”
She identified nursing’s special concern as individ-
uals’ needs for self-care and their capabilities for
meeting these needs.
Reprinted from Nursing Science Quarterly(1997), 10(1) 26–31,
with permission of F. A. Davis.
Views of Human Beings
Specific to Nursing
DOROTHEA E. OREM
Nursing is commonly viewed as a human health
service. In this nonspecific generalization, the term
“human health service” expresses what nursing is.
The term implies that there are two categories of
human beings: those who need the nursing service
and those who produce it. The word “service” im-
plies that nursing is a helpful activity, and the word
“health” indicates that the thrust of the service is
the structural and functional integrity of persons
served. A nursing-specific generalization, such as a
general nursing concept or theory, gives names and
roles to the two categories of human beings, attrib-
utes distinct human powers and properties to each,
identifies the interactions among them, and speci-
fies the broad structural features of the processes of
producing nursing. The Nursing Development
Conference Group’s 1971 general conceptual model
of a nursing system demonstrates the foregoing
statements (Table 12–1).
In the nursing literature, views of human beings
are sometimes represented as distinct from views of
nursing. It is true, of course, that one can study and
think about the existence of and the nature and
behaviors of human beings—men, women, chil-
dren—separate and apart from thoughts about
nursing. But it is not true that one can study and
think about nursing without incorporating into
one’s thought processes nursing-specific views of
human beings. The integration of views of hu-
mankind within views of nursing is the focus of
this discussion.NURSING-SPECIFIC VIEWS
The powers and properties of human beings
specific to nursing are named in the Nursing
Development Conference Group’s general concept
of nursing systems presented in Table 12–1. They
are further developed in Orem’s 1995 work and in
earlier expressions of the Self-Care Deficit Nursing
Theory, with its constituent theories of self-care,
self-care deficit, and nursing system. Without ques-
tion it is individual human beings, through the
activation of their powers for result-seeking and
result-producing endeavors, who generate the
processes and systems of care named “nursing.”
Nursing science is knowing and seeking to ex-
tend and deepen knowing of both the structure
of the nursing processes and of the internal struc-142 SECTION III Nursing Theory in Nursing Practice, Education, Research, and Administration
Table 12–1 Concepts of Nursing and Nursing SystemsAnursing system,like other systems for the provision of personal services, is the product of a series of relations be-
tween persons who belong to different sets (classes), the set A and the set B. From a nursing perspective any mem-
ber of the set A (legitimate patient) presents evidence descriptive of the complex subsets self-care agency and
therapeutic self-care demand and the condition that in A demand exceeds agency due to health or health-related
causes. Any member of the set B (legitimate nurse) presents evidence descriptive of the complex subset nursing
agency which includes valuation of the legitimate relations between self as nurseand instances where, in A, certain
values of the component phenomena of self-care agency and therapeutic self-care demand prevail.
B’s perceptions of the conditionality of A’s subset objective therapeutic self-care demand on the subset self-care agency
establishes the conditionality of changes in the states of A’s two subsets on the state of and changes in the state of
B’s subset nursing agency. The activation of the components of the subset nursing agency (change in state) by B to
deliberately control or alter the state of one or both of A’s subsets—therapeutic self-care demand and self-care
agency— is nursing. The perceived relations among the parts of the three subsets (actual system) constitute the
organization. The “mapping” of the behaviors in “mathematical or behavioral terms” provides a record of the system.Source:From Concept Formalization in Nursing: Process and Product(1979). (2nd ed., p. 107), by Nursing Development
Conference Group (D. E. Orem, Ed.). Boston: Little, Brown. Copyright 1979 by Dorothea E. Orem. Reprinted with permission.