Ernestine Wiedenbach's Contribution To the Development of Clinical Nursing Practice

Ernestine Wiedenbach's theory has contributed to the development of clinical nursing practice by influencing core concepts in practice, such as the nursing process, and by contributing to the goal of nursing, which is to attend to a patient's needs by assessing their need for help in the clinical setting/

The helping art of nursing is seen in all nursing practice involving the individual, and it uses the basis of nursing practice, the basis being the nursing process. The nursing process is a systematic problem-solving approach first applied by Orlando in 1961 and involved four key steps which includes assessment, planning, intervention and evaluation (Potter, Perry, 2006, p. 68). According Alligood and Tomey (2010), Wiedenbach also developed a personal nursing steps in which the nurse can identify a patient's need for help by:

1.Observing behaviors consistent or inconsistent with their comfort,

2.Exploring the meaning of their behaviour,

3.Determining whether they can resolve their problems or have a need for help,

4.Determining whether they can resolve their problems or have a need for help”

Orlando's Nursing Process is related to Wiedenbach's process of identifying a patient's need for help because they both follow the same care trajectory from initial observation and assessment to intervention and evaluation. Since these two theories follow the same trajectory, they can be applied in similar situations in clinical nursing practice.

Wiedenbach's process of identifying a patient's need for help can be applied when a nurse is directly providing care for a patient. Richard and Johnson (2007) used Wiedenbach's nursing theory to guide nursing practice, where the nurse identifies the needs of the patient and their need for...

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...-care deficit”(Ackley& Ladwig, 2008), for example, when diagnosised for a patient in their care plan has been assessed by the nurse. The nurse has assessed and come to the conclusion at the time of making the diagnosis that the patient in question is unable to feed themselves and has a need for help in feeding. Therefore, in order to come to this diagnosis the nurse identifies the need for help by going through Wiedenbach's four step process of identifying a patients need.

Ernestine Wiedenbach was a very influential nursing theorist and has influenced nursing on a large scale, especially in clinical practice. Her theory of self-help and her other theoretical contributions to the discipline of nursing has been greatly recognized and respected. Her work has contributed to core concepts of nursing, has contributed to the goal of nursing and the care of our patients.