Case Study Of Hildegard Peplau's Interpersonal Relations Theory

Theory Application and Case Study The purpose of this paper is to discuss Hildegard Peplau’s interpersonal relations theory with an application to a case study. Peplau’s career as a nurse theorist will also be discussed along with an examination of her theory.

Peplau’s Theory Hildegard Peplau was a nursing theorist that had a significant impact on the nursing profession having a nursing career that spanned over 50 years as a staff nurse, researcher, and educator. Peplau has been described as the mother of psychiatric nursing for her dynamic leadership in nursing (Alligood, 2014). In the late 1940’s Peplau began her theory work which was grounded in her clinical experiences in response to the need to develop advance psychiatric nursing

ix). Peplau’s theory is classified as a middle-range descriptive theory that is focused on the psychological and interpersonal phenomena of the nurse-patient relationship and their therapeutic relation toward a common goal of wellness. According to Alligood (2014), a middle-range theory is focused on a specific phenomenon that links concepts and is pragmatic, which is a viable approach to Peplau’s interpersonal relations theory. The purpose of Peplau’s middle range theory is classified as descriptive providing groundwork for research that seeks to explore and explain while providing additional information about aspects of a situation (Polit & Beck, 2012). Peplau does not describe the metaparadigm of nursing. Peplau uses a model to show the changing aspects of nurse-patient relationships showing overlapping phases (see Appendix for the

• Person: an organism that strives in its own way to reduce tension generated by needs whereas the patient is the individual with a perceived need.

• Environment: considering the patient’s culture and moral needs when patients adjust to hospital routine.

• Health: a word symbol that implies forward movement of personality and other ongoing human processes in the direction of creative, constructive, productive, personal, and community living. The relationship between the nurse and the patient is the key concept to this theory, which is described as an interpersonal relations process that utilizes a psychodynamic nursing process as “being able to help others identify felt difficulties, and to apply principles of human relations to the problems that arise at all levels of experience” (Kim & Kim, 2007, p. 12). Essentially, this approach allows the nurse to move away from a disease orientation and apply principles of human relations to problems by exploring the psychological meanings of events, feelings, and behaviors and merging them into nursing interventions (Kim & Kim, 2007). Ultimately, the interpersonal relations theory in nursing allows the nurse to improve her skills and thus the nurse-patient relationship, which