adaptation model

adaptation model,

(in nursing) a conceptual framework that focuses on the patient as an adaptive system, one in which nursing intervention is required when a deficit develops in the patient's ability to cope with the internal and external demands of the environment. These demands are classified into four groups: physiologic needs, the need for a positive self-concept, the need to perform social roles, and the need to balance dependence and independence. The nurse assesses the patient's maladaptive response and identifies the kind of demand that is causing the problem. Nursing care is planned to promote adaptive responses for coping successfully with the current stress on the patient's well-being. This model, first proposed by Sister Callista Roy, is frequently used as a conceptual framework for programs of nursing education.

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adaptation model 

a conceptual model of nursing, formulated by Sister Callista roy, concerned with problems of adaptation to the changing environment. The person is an adaptive system that includes regulator and cognator coping mechanisms. The individual or group that has actual or potential adaptation problems is the recipient of care. The environment is all the internal and external stimuli that affect an individual or group. Environmental stimuli include the conditions, circumstances, and influences that surround and affect the development and behavior of an individual or group. Health is a state of being and a process of becoming an integrated and whole person. Adaptive behavior in four modes (physiological, self-concept, role function, and interdependence) is termed wellness; illness is ineffective adaptation in one or more of these modes. Nursing is a theoretical system of knowledge that prescribes a systematic process related to the care of the ill or potentially ill person.

The goal of nursing is to promote patient adaptation in all four adaptive modes during wellness and illness. The nursing process component of the adaptation model involves six steps. In step one, assessment of behaviors, data regarding the client's physiological, self-concept, role function, and interdependence behaviors are collected. Once the data have been collected, the nurse must judge whether the behaviors are adaptive or ineffective. Thus the primary question is: To what extent is the person adapting to environmental stimuli? In step two, assessment of influencing factors, priorities are set for further assessment and identification of the environmental stimuli that influence the client's behavior and so contribute to the adaptive or ineffective responses. Step three, nursing diagnosis, involves a behavioral description of the client's adaptive or ineffective responses and identification of the most relevant influencing factors, as well as establishment of a hierarchy of importance for the nursing diagnoses. In step four, goal setting, the goals for nursing care are formulated. These goals are stated as behaviors expected as the outcome of nursing intervention. Step five, intervention, involves management of environmental stimuli, which takes the form of an increase, decrease, modification, maintenance, or removal of internal or external stimuli. The intervention with the highest probability of reaching the desired goal is selected. In step six, evaluation, the effectiveness of the nursing intervention is judged. The criterion for effectiveness is whether the desired behavioral goal was attained. The outcome of this step is updating of the nursing care plan.