Care for patients with Sickle Cell Disease - Essay Example

Helen Erickson, Evelyn Tomlin, and Mary Ann Swain developed the modeling and role-modeling (MRM) theory. This grand theory of nursing provides holistic care to clients by understanding their needs and providing client-centered interventions to meet the needs. It identifies the nurse as a “facilitator” who uses the modeling and role-modeling processes to help individuals “achieve a perceived optimal state of health and well-being”. Nurses use the process of modeling to develop an “understanding of the client’s world as the client perceives it” by accepting the individual’s belief.

While the planning and implementation of client-specific nursing interventions are ongoing, the role-modeling process follows. This theory uses five aims of intervention as a standard in providing individualized care.The MRM theory also integrates Maslow’s theory, Piaget’s theory, and the concept of object attachment. The theory describes many concepts and their relationships in nursing and individuals since its original intentions were to guide the nurse-patient relationship. The nursing concepts include facilitation, nurturance, and unconditional acceptance, while concepts in individuals include similarities and differences in people.

The commonness among human beings includes basic needs, holism, lifetime development, and affiliated individuation, while differences include inherent endowment, adaptation to stressors, mind-body relationships, and self-care.. The commonness among human beings include basic needs, holism, lifetime development, and affiliated individuation, while differences include inherent endowment, adaptation to stressors, mind-body relationships, and self-care (Erickson, 2010). There is an interrelationship of these differences and similarities.

Following its publishing in 1983, there has been extensive research, examination, and adaptation of the MRM theory in diverse settings. It further guides undergraduate nursing curriculum, weight reduction programs, chronic illness management, and practice in hospitals (Frisch & Bowman, 2011). Strength and Limitations Some general strengths of the MRM theory include clarity, simplicity, and generality (Erickson, 2010). Theorists Erickson, Tomlin, and Swain clearly explained the theory while providing examples of their experiences to give a holistic understanding.

The theory has a simple structure since it focuses on two steps of modeling and role-modeling. However, the interactions of its major concepts with the role of nursing add depth and complexity to the theory (Erickson, 2010). Nevertheless, its standard form allows its applicability in many nursing and patient situations by researchers and clinicians. However, its major limitation is that inexperienced nurses find it difficult to apply (Frisch & Bowman, 2011). While clinicians learn to perceive the client’s world by “unconditional acceptance” of the client as a unique individual easily, the theory requires experience and understanding of nursing in order to avoid confusing the role of a “caring professional” with that of a “caring friend” (Frisch & Bowman, 2011, p. 536). The MRM theory’s focus on client-centered care is