Self-Regulation Theory

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The purpose of this paper is to review the theory of self-regulation and how it can be applied to practice in health care settings to improve patient outcomes. According to Johnson (1997), more than 25 years of research has influenced the development of the self-regulation theory, which is about coping with healthcare experiences. Health problems have shifted from acute to chronic where it has been identified that personal behaviors are linked to over half of societies chronic health problems (Ryan & Sawin, 2009). As the modern nurse strives to provide specialized care and improve patient outcomes, the utilization of nursing theory continues to gain importance. This theory explains how patients use specific types of information to cope with health care events thus providing a rational for selecting information that can be expected to benefit patients. The concept of self-regulation has been a part of nursing practice in a circumlocutory fashion for years. It has been most commonly referred to as self-management creating considerable ambiguity and overlapping of definitions for that term and self-regulation (SR). For the purpose of this paper these terms will imply that people follow self-set goals introduced by their health care provider.
Jean E. Johnson (1997), a registered nurse and graduate professor at the University of Rochester School of Nursing, is considered responsible for developing the Self-Regulation Theory (SRT) in the late nineteen nineties. It was through years of contributions and interactions with her professional colleagues, students, and attendees of her “Stress and Coping” group that contributed to the development of this theory. It was identified, and holds true today, that patients are expected to play an ...

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..., activation and use of goals, discrepancy detection and implementation, self-evaluation, and that self monitoring is fundamental to self-regulation. The largest group of health care providers comprise of nurses. Implementing this theory into the practice of todays nurse is not an unrealistic task as it has been taking place one one level or another for many years. Because modern nurses are faced with providing care to individuals, families, groups and communities of people, educating and expecting them to use SRT will provide better patient outcomes overall. Perhaps the practice of wanting the very best for patients is actually an inherent quality of nurses. Baumeister, Vohs, and Tice (2007) support and argue that self-regulation is a homeostatic process such as maintaining a constant body temperature and that with the proper gauges/resources this can be obtained.

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