Roper’s model of nursing was originally published in 1976, and revised in 1985 and 1990. The most recent revision occurred in 1998.
The initial purpose of the model was to be an assessment used throughout the patient’s care, but has become the norm in nursing in the United Kingdom to only use it as a checklist during admission. It is usually used to determine how a patient’s life has changed because of an illness or hospital admission rather than as a way to plan for increased independence and quality of life.
The Roper-Logan-Tierney Model of Nursing is the most widely-used model of nursing used in the United Kingdom, and used particularly well in medical and surgical settings.
The model is based upon activities of living, which evolved from the work of Virginia Henderson in 1966. The activities of daily living are the key to the model, which seeks to define “what living means.” The discoveries about what living means are categorized into the activities of living to promote maximum independence through complete assessment, which leads to interventions that further support independence in areas that may be difficult or impossible for the patient on his or her own.
The model assesses the patient’s level of independence in relation to the activities of living, which then helps the nurse and health care team to develop a nursing care plan based on the patient’s individual abilities and levels of independence. To be most effective, the patient should be assessed upon admission, as well as evaluated throughout care. That way, changes can be made to the care plan, if needed. The activities of living listed in the model are:
- maintaining a safe environment
- communication
- breathing
- eating and drinking
- elimination
- washing and dressing
- temperature control
- mobilization
- working and playing
- expressing sexuality
- sleeping
- death and dying
The factors that influence activities of living are biological, psychological, sociocultural, environmental, and politicoeconomic. These factors make the model holistic, and if they are not included in assessment, it will be both incomplete and flawed. The biological factor is the impact of the overall health; the psychological factor is the impact of emotion, cognition, spiritual beliefs, and the ability to understand; the sociocultural factor is the impact of society and culture experienced by the individual; the environmental factor considers the impact of the environment on the patient, as well as the patient’s impact on the environment; and the politicoeconomic factor is the impact of the government, politics, and economy on the activities of daily living.