Dorothea Elizabeth Orem (June 15, 1914 – June 22, 2007), born in Baltimore, Maryland, was a nursing theorist and creator of the self-care deficit nursing theory, also known as the Orem model of nursing.
Dorothea Elizabeth Orem (June 15, 1914 – June 22, 2007), born in Baltimore, Maryland, was a nursing theorist and creator of the self-care deficit nursing theory, also known as the Orem model of nursing.
Orem received a nursing diploma from Providence Hospital School of Nursing in Washington, D.C. She also attended Catholic University of America, earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Education in 1939 and a Master of Science in Nursing Education in 1945.
Orem has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from Georgetown University, Incarnate Word College and Illinois Wesleyan University.[1]
Orem's nursing theory states self-care as a human need, and nurses design interventions to provide or manage self-care actions for persons to recover or maintain health.[2]
Orem was a member of the group of nurse theorists who presented Patterns of Unitary Man (Humans), the initial framework for nursing diagnosis, to the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association in 1982.[3]
Orem died on June 22, 2007, in Savannah, Georgia, where she had spent the last 25 years of her life as a consultant and author. She was 92.[4]
