Nursing Pender Outline

A. Nola Pender (born August 16, 1941) is a nursing theorist, author, and academic. She is a professor emeritus of nursing at the University of Michigan. Nola Pender developed a nursing theory called the Health Promotion Model. This theory is aimed at helping patients prevent illness through their behaviors and choices (Butts et al., 2013).

B. She earned her Ph.D. degree from Northwestern University in 1969. During her doctoral degree, she met a doctoral advisor by the name James Hall who studied human thoughts in relation to how they influenced and shaped their behavior and motivation. From her interaction with James, Nola developed a keen interest in health promotion, which culminated in her, coming up with the health promotion model after seeing that health personnel only intervene when a patient has developed an acute or chronic health condition (Butts et al., 2013).

C. She believed that preventing a health complication before it occurred could improve a person’s quality of life and save them money. Pender’s model was published in 1982.

D. Overview of the Theory

• The purpose of Nola Pender’s theory is to aid nurses in helping their patients identify health risk factors as well as beneficial practices in order to help the patients actively determine which behaviors will result in achieving optimum health (Pender, 2011).

• The Health Promotion Model is based on eight assessment-nursing beliefs, all of which can be determined as points of potential nursing intervention (Petiprin, 2016).

• The key nursing concepts captured in the model include a consideration of the:

· Person

· Environment

· Nursing

· Health

· Illness (Pender, 2011)

II. BACKGROUND: THEORY DESCRIPTION

A. Health Promotion Model

1. The Model:

· In1982, Dr. Pender published the Health Promotion Model in her first edition book, Health Promotion in Nursing Practice.

· The key components of this model include individual characteristics and experiences, behavior specific cognition and affects, and behavioral outcome health promoting behavior.

· The purpose of this model is to promote health promotion and illness prevention.

· It can aid nurses to help patients in altering their negative behaviors.

· Mid-range theory: A testable theory that contains a limited number of variables, and is limited in scope as well, yet is of sufficient in generality to be useful with a variety of clinical research questions (physical exercise, diet, smoking, stress management) (Brown, 2013).

2. Focus and Goal:

· In Pender’s perspective, health is a positive dynamic state, not just absence of disease. Thus, her theory focuses on three main aspects of life, behavior specific knowledge, individual experience, and behavior outcome. As such, every individual should be educated on behavioral changes that will help promote their health.

· Dr. Pender wanted a model that focused on positive factors:

· Identified factors that influence behavior (Pender, 2011)

· The nurse work with the patient to discover behaviors and help change them, so can lead to a healthy lifestyle (Pender, 2011)

· Dr. Pender believed that prevention is a better option because it delivers:

· Better quality of life

· Increased life span

· Saving in health care dollars (Pender, 2011)

· With this knowledge, these individuals should then work towards changing their past behaviors, whether cultural practices or family traditions, with the hope that these changes will produce anticipated health benefits. The goal is to learn and set up health promoting behavior (Alligood, 2014).