Johnson and Orlando nursing theory presentation guide

This module asks for two different pieces of work and they use two different theorists, which is easy to miss and fatal to miss. The discussion applies Johnson's Behavioral Systems Model to a clinical situation of your choosing; the presentation applies Orlando's theory to the supplied case of Susan and Sam, and then adds a historical section on nursing in the 1950s and 1960s. Keep them separate. A submission that runs Johnson's subsystems over the Susan and Sam case has answered the wrong question with the right effort. It is worth naming the difference explicitly somewhere, because the module is clearly designed to make you feel it: Johnson tells you what to look at and Orlando tells you how to find out whether you were right.

Johnson's model works by locating a disturbance in one of seven subsystems, so the discussion needs a clinical situation where something specific has become unbalanced. The subsystems named in the brief — affiliation, dependency, ingestive, eliminative, sexual, aggressive-protective and achievement — give you the analytic vocabulary, and the model's claim is that behaviour becomes purposeful, orderly and predictable when the system is balanced and stops being so when it is not. Pick a situation where you can describe the disturbed behaviour concretely, then say which subsystem it belongs to and how the nurse acts to restore balance. The model distinguishes the behavioural system from the biological one, so a purely medical case gives it nothing to do. Good candidates are the ones where the medicine is straightforward and the behaviour is not — a patient who will not eat after surgery, one who refuses help they clearly need, one whose family has taken over decisions they could still make.

Orlando is a different kind of theory and the case is built for it. Where Johnson describes a structure, Orlando describes a process: the patient's behaviour is a signal of need, the nurse notices her own reaction to it, and she validates her interpretation with the patient before acting. The questions Orlando's theory guides you to ask are therefore mostly questions the nurse asks aloud. Look at the case detail — Sam silent and tearful, avoiding eye contact, the unopened mail, the neglected yard, one car in the driveway, Susan describing being left with all the responsibility while working part time with two small children — and notice how much of it is inference. Orlando's whole point is that inference must be checked, so the questions you propose should be the ones that would test what you think you are seeing.

The family plan of care from Orlando's perspective has an implication most students miss: there are two people here presenting distress, and Orlando's method applies to each of them separately before it applies to the family. Susan's need and Sam's need are not the same, and the nurse's first task is to establish each from the person rather than from the observations. Build the plan around validated needs and immediate responses, and be explicit about what you would do if Sam does not or cannot articulate his — the theory is limited to patients capable of interaction, and saying so is a mark of understanding rather than of doubt. Sam is the harder case in exactly that way: he is present, silent and visibly distressed, and a plan that assumes his need can be inferred from the room has done precisely what Orlando's method exists to prevent.

The historical section is the easiest part to write superficially and the easiest to make interesting, because the period is genuinely dramatic. The 1950s and 1960s are when American nursing moved out of hospital diploma training and into colleges: associate degree programmes appeared in community colleges in the early 1950s, and by 1965 and 1966 the professional bodies were formally recommending baccalaureate preparation for professional nurses. That reform was contested rather than smooth, with existing faculty and clinical instructors fearing displacement. On the most influential accomplishment in nursing theory from the period, an honest answer picks one, defends it, and names the alternative it beat — Orlando's own 1961 book, built on the analysis of some 2,000 nurse-patient contacts, is a defensible choice precisely because it grounded theory in observation. Whatever you choose, tie it back to the earlier sections rather than leaving the history freestanding — the reason this module puts a 1961 theory next to a 1960s history section is that the theory is a product of the period's push to build a science of nursing.

On mechanics: 14 to 20 slides with title and reference slides, at least four outside references plus the textbook. That length means roughly two slides per numbered question, so plan the allocation before designing anything. Put the historical section's images and dates on the slides and the argument in the notes, and make sure each of your four outside references supports a specific claim — the historical section in particular invites unsourced generalisation about what nursing was like, and dates, figures and named policy decisions are what prevent that. Be careful with the question about dress, autonomy and respect too: it is easy to write a nostalgic or a dismissive account, and the accurate one is neither — the period's nurses were highly disciplined, closely supervised and, by the end of it, actively reorganising their own profession.