HERMENEUTIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WORK OF DOROTHEA E. OREM: A NURSING METAPHOR (SELF-CARE, DEFICIT, THEORY EVALUATION).
Contributors: University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 293
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This dissertation proposed a methodology to extend beyond the traditional structural analysis methods of nursing theory analysis and evaluation. The project illustrates the use of the hermeneutic methodology with the work of Dorothea Orem. The need for structuring the substantive knowledge of nursing and for understanding the meaning of a theory were described.

The history and philosophy of hermeneutics was described from the influences of Kantian philosophy and empiricism on the development of hermeneutics along epistemological (Schleiermacher and Dilthey) and ontological (Husserl and Heidegger) lineages to the contemporary theory of hermeneutic interpretation of Paul Ricoeur. A model of hermeneutic interpretation for identification of metaphors in a written work was developed and proposed for its usefulness in understanding the sense (structure) and reference (meaning) of a written work. The process of hermeneutic interpretation included engagement in the work, distanciation or semantic autonomy of the text, structural analysis and hermeneutic interpretation culminating in the identification and appropriation of the metaphors projected in front of the text as the world of the text.

The development of Orem's self-care deficit theory of nursing was described from its first major publication in Nursing: Concepts of Practice (1971) through the second (1980) and third (1985) editions and the further development of the theory in the works of the Nursing Development Conference Group (1973 and 1979). Structural analysis of the terms self-care and self-care deficit exemplified that phase of the hermeneutic process. The process of hermeneutic interpretation developed and proposed in the project was used with all five works. Identification of the nursing metaphors projected in the third edition (1985) of Orem's work enhances understanding and appropriation of the meaning of the text, the world of self-care deficit nursing. Nursing metaphors in Orem's work and discussed in this project included nursing as self-care, nursing as a helping human service, and nursing as a practice discipline. Implications of the use of the method of hermeneutic interpretation in the human sciences including nursing were described. Implications of the use of Orem's theory for the further development of the substantive knowledge of the discipline of nursing were also described.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-02, Section: B, page: 0576.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1985.

School code: 0831.