The History of the Roy Adaptation Model

The History of the Roy Adaptation Model

The Roy Adaptation Model for Nursing had it’s beginning with Sister Callista Roy entered the masters program in pediatric nursing at the University of California in Los Angeles in 1964. Dorothy E. Johnson, Roy’s advisor and seminar faculty, was speaking at the time on the need to define the goal of nursing as a way of focusing the development of knowledge for practice. During Roy’s first seminar in pediatric nursing, she proposed that the goal of nursing was promoting patient adaptation. Johnson encouraged her to develop her concept of adaptation as a framework for nursing, throughout the course of her master’s program. Von Vertalanffy’s use of systems theory was a key component in the early concept of the model, as was the work of Helson. Helson defined adaptation as the process of responding positively to environmental changes, and then went on to describe three types of stimuli, those being focal, contextual, and residual. Roy made derivations of these concepts for use in describing situations of people in both health and illness. Roy’s view of the person as an adaptive system took shape from this early work, with the congnator and regulator being added as the major internal processes of the adapting person.

After 17 years of work with the faculty at Mount St. Mary’s college in Los Angeles, the model became the framework for a nursing-based integrated curriculum, in March 1970, the same month that the first article on the model was published in Nursing Outlook. The four adaptive models were added as the ways in which adaptation is manifested and thus as the basis for nursing assessment.

Through curriculum consultation and throughout the USA and eventually worldwide, Roy received input on the use of the model in education and practice. It is estimated that by 1987 at least 100,000 nurses had been educated in programs built around the Roy Adaptation Model. As the discipline of nursing grew in articulating it’s scientific and philosophical assumptions, Roy also articulated her assumptions. Roy’s first descriptions included systems theory and adaptation-level theory, as well as humanist values. As time progressed, Roy developed the philosophical assumptions of veritivity as a way of addressing the limitations she saw in the relativistic philosophical basis of other conceptual approaches to nursing and a limit...

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... night within 1 week of HS Prozac cessation'. Another goal could be 'The client will report less anxiety within 2 weeks as evidenced by a reduction in her use of PRN Xanex'. Interventions would be carried out as applicable to the client and would be specific to the nursing goals. They are directed at promotion of adaptation. The final stage of the nursing process is evaluation. Evaluation includes the observation of change in the client’s behavior. One would determine if her goals are met or not met. One would ask the client about changes in her sleep pattern. One would evaluate any changes in behavior related to anxiety. If the behavior is not adaptive, then more assessment is needed and the interventions would be adjusted. In this manner, Roy’s model would be applied to most any clinical situation.

References

Roy, C. (1998) The Roy Adaptation Model 2nd Edition. New York: Prentice Hall

Andrews, Heather A. (1986) The essentials of the Roy Adaptation Model. Connecticut:

Appleton-Century-Croft.

Roy, C. Akinsanya J. Crouch C. Fletcher L. Cox G. Price B. (1982) The Roy Adaptation

Model in Action (Nursing Models in Action S.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan