Nursing Theorist: Ida Jean Orlando

University of Phoenix
Nursing 403

Nursing Theorist: Ida Jean Orlando
Ida Jean Orlando was born in 1926, the first of her Italian family born in America. She received multiple degrees while pursuing her education. Orlando started with her nursing diploma in 1947 and achieved even greater success in her educational endeavors by eventually receiving her B.S. in public health, and her M.A. in mental health nursing. Orlando became an associate professor at Yale University in 1954. While at Yale, she became the project investigator of a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Orlando’s participation and research in the grant study led her to the discovery of her theory that she first described as the Deliberative Nursing Process. The model was developed after feeling dissatisfied with the realization that nursing was motivated by doctor’s orders and institutional criteria, rather than patient-focused care. (Tyra, 2008).
The premise of Orlando’s theory is based on the relationship between the nurse and patient and whether or not the nurse is giving “good” patient care or “bad” patient care. She discovered in her research that patients and nurses alike considered good patient care the ability of the nurse to focus on the patient’s behavior, both verbal and non-verbal (Alligood, 2010). Bad patient care occurred when the nurse’s focus was strictly task-oriented or had nothing to do with the patient’s behavior or needs. According to Orlando, all patient behavior can be a cry for help, and it is up to the nurse to interpret the behavior and determine the needs of the patient (Potter & Bockenhaur, 2000). Nurses need to use their perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and intuition to explore the patient and the meaning of his or her behavior.
Orlando’s theory focuses on the role of the nurse in discovering and resolving