Answer:
Nursing theory is also important because it can be viewed as guiding how we think about nursing. Nursing theory helps distinguish nursing as a separate discipline from medicine and related sciences and assists nurses in understanding their patients and their needs. The theory provides different templates to help nurses provide care that respects patients and improves outcomes. Through understanding the intersection of nursing, patients, health, and the environment, these theories aim to simplify the complicated, ever-evolving relationship that nurses have with their profession.
The Importance of Nursing Theory for Nurse Education
Prior to the development of nursing theories, nursing was seen as a task-oriented occupation, and nurses were trained by doctors. Today, nursing theory serves as the foundation of nursing. It is shaping the field in important ways, according to the website Nurse labs, because it:
Helps nurses understand their purpose and role in the health care setting
Guides knowledge development
Directs education, research, and practice
Recognizes what should set the foundation of practice by explicitly describing nursing
Serves as a rationale or scientific reason for nursing interventions and gives nurses the knowledge base to act and respond appropriately in nursing care situations
Provides the foundations of nursing practice
Indicates in which direction nursing should develop in the future
Gives nurses a sense of identity
Helps patients, managers, and other health care professionals acknowledge and understand the unique contribution nurses make to health care service
Prepares nurses to reflect on nursing assumptions and examine the values in nursing, thus further defining nursing and increasing knowledge base
Allows the nursing profession to maintain and preserve its professional limits and boundaries
