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Nursing Theory and History: Home

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Nursing History

To find information on a historical person, start with a good reference source!

  • The Gale In Context: Biography database has value added as it includes articles from magazines, scholarly journals, and even primary sources as well as articles from reference books.
  • Credo Reference has topic pages on the most famous people that link to searches in other library databases.
  • Gale Ebooks (formerly the Virtual Reference Library) has subject encyclopedias that will cover many aspects of nursing.
  • The ebook History of Professional Nursing in the United States gives an overview that will put your person in context.
  • Once you have a good grasp of a person's biography and importance, you can find more specific information in articles in the core Nursing databases or look for more books and ebooks using the Library Search.

Finding Articles

To find journal articles by or about your nurse theorist/leader and/or their theory/contributions, try searching one or more of the following databases.

SEARCH TIPS:

  • Be sure to use the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals or Peer Reviewed filter at the bottom of the search page or at the top of the search results page.

Nursing Theory and Nurse Theorists

The USC Upstate Library has DVDs for several of the Nurse Theorists (see list below) all can be found in the Circulating Collection in the RT 84.5 area of the collection. Check the library catalog to see if these DVDs are available.

  • Betty Neuman systems model. 
  • Callista Roy adaptation model in practice. 
  • Callista Roy adaptation model of nursing. 
  • Dorothea Orem self-care framework model in practice. 
  • Dorothy Johnson behavioral systems model. 
  • Florence Nightingale life and work. 
  • Helen Erickson modeling & role-modeling 
  • Hildegard Peplau interpersonal relations in nursing. 
  • Ida Orlando Pelletier nursing process discipline. 
  • Imogene King interacting systems. 
  • Jean Watson a theory of human caring 
  • Madeleine Leininger cultural care diversity & universality. 
  • Margaret Newman health as expanding consciousness. 
  • Martha Rogers science of unitary human beings. 
  • Merle Mishel uncertainty in illness 
  • Myra Levine the conservation model. 
  • Nola Pender health promotion 
  • Pamela Reed self-transcendence 
  • Patricia Benner from beginner to expert : clinical knowledge in critical care nursing 
  • Patricia Benner novice to expert 
  • Reva Rubin theory of maternal identity. 
  • Rosemarie Parse theory of human becoming. 
  • Virginia Henderson definition of nursing