Determining the adequacy of a health promotion self-care interview guide with healthy, middle-aged, Mexican American women: a pilot study.

The Hispanic/Latino population is the second largest and fastest growing minority in the United States, with Mexican Americans comprising 60.4% of the total. Existing research instruments and procedures must be made culturally specific, both theoretically and empirically, for use with this population. Our purpose in the present study was to determine whether one part of the Health Promotion Self-Care Interview Guide (HPSCIG), developed to identify self-care actions that promote well-being in healthy, middle-aged Anglo American and African American women (Hartweg, 1991, 1993), was culturally sensitive for use with Mexican American women. This was a necessary step before the full HPSCIG was translated into Spanish for a larger bilingual study. Twenty Mexican American women identified 232 self-care actions they took to promote well-being as they defined it. More than 81% of the self-care actions were performed to meet the universal self-care requisites, 11% were performed to meet the developmental requisites of middle-age, and 2% were performed to meet health deviation self-care requisites. Six percent of the actions could not be classified using the theoretical coding scheme. Inherent in the study were questions about the congruence and relevance of self-care as a concept in this population. The findings support the use of the HPSCIG with healthy, middle-aged Mexican American women.

Self-care actions of healthy middle-aged women to promote well-being.

The purpose of this study was to describe self-care actions that healthy middle-aged women perform to promote well-being. The heterogenous sample of black and white women (N = 153) ranged in age from 40 to 59. Subjects responded to a structured interview guide based on Orem's Theory of Self-Care and a developmental change list. Women identified 8,693 diverse self-care actions that promote well-being. Using content analysis, actions were categorized by the purpose for which the action was performed. The majority were related to universal self-care requisites, with self-care actions related to categories of activity and social interaction most frequently cited. One fourth were self-care actions related to developmental changes experienced in middle age. Many self-care actions were performed to meet multiple purposes or requisites. When demographic variables were correlated with self-care actions, education, age, and number of children were significantly correlated with types of self-care actions.

Health promotion self-care within Orem's general theory of nursing.

The growing emphasis on health promotion by society and the increasing utilization of Orem's general theory of nursing to guide practice, education and research create a need to clarify health promotion activity within the model. The concept of health promotion self-care is developed after an analysis of statements by Pender and Orem for their logical congruence. Further in-depth analysis of Orem's model facilitates the placement of the new concept within its current structure. The potential strength of the model for guiding health promotion practice is discussed, as well as areas for needed development.

Self-care agency: conceptualizations and operationalizations.

This article traces the interactive process between theory and research as it has been used to clarify the concept of self-care agency, a key concept in Orem's model of nursing. Theoretical constructions of self-care agency that have emerged in the work of Orem and the Nursing Development Conference Group are reviewed. Operational measures of self-care agency are described, particularly with regard to their underlying theoretical formulations. Factorial structures for some self-care agency instruments are related to the components of self-care agency in Orem's most recent conceptualization. Dimensions of self-care agency that are consistently supported by research studies of this phenomenon are identified.

Self-care attitude changes of nursing students enrolled in a self-care curriculum--a longitudinal study.

The purpose of this 3-year longitudinal study was to determine if nursing students' self-care attitudes change after being socialized through a curriculum based on Orem's Self-Care Deficit Theory. The sample consisted of 40 baccalaureate nursing students and 71 general university students who served as a control group. Pretest-posttest design was used employing the Linn-Lewis Self-Care Attitude Scale. On initial testing, nursing students had more positive attitudes toward self-care than the general university students, but the results were not significant. At the completion of the nursing curriculum, analysis of covariance on posttest mean scores indicated nursing students had significantly higher self-care scores (p less than .001).