FAYE GLENN

ABDELLAH
Reported by: Ma. Agnes Quililan Ababao
Rachelle Eunice Nanez
Kimberly Claire Romano
1BSN1 (Ladderized)

Who is Faye Abdellah to you?

She is a pioneer in nursing research

who developed the

Twenty-One Nursing Problems.Her
model of nursing was progressive for
the time in that it refers to a nursing
diagnosis during a time in which
nurses were taught that diagnosis
were not part of their role in health
care.

Abdellah was born on March

13, 1919 in New York to a

father of Algerian heritage
and Scottish mother. Her
family subsequently moved
to New Jersey where she
attended high school.

Years later, on May 6, 1937, the German hydrogen-fueled

airship Hindenburg exploded over Lakehurst.

EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT:
Abdellah earned a nursing diploma from

fitkin memorial hospitals school of nursing,

now known as ( Ann may school of
nursing )
It was sufficient to practice nursing during
her time in the 1940s, but shebelieved
that nursing care should be based on
research, not hours of care.

Shewent on to earn three degrees from

Columbia University: a bachelor of science

degree in nursing in 1945, Master of arts
degree in physiology in 1947 and a doctor of
education degree in 1955.
With her advanced education, Abdellah could
have chosen to become a doctor. However, as
she explained in one of her interviews that
she wanted to be an M.D. because she could
do all she wanted to do in nursing, which is a
caring profession.

CAREER AND APPOINTMENTS:

AS AN EDUCATOR
At her early twenties, Abdellah worked as a

health nurse at a private school and her first

administrative position was on the faculty of
Yale University from 1945-1949. At that time
she was required to teach a class called 120
Principles of Nursing Practice, using a standard
nursing textbook published by the National
League for Nursing. The book included
guidelines that had no scientific basis which
challenged Abdellah to explain everything to
what she called the brilliant students.

Abdellah named deputy surgeon general in 1981

She worked in many

settings. She had been a

staff nurse, a head nurse, a
faculty member at Yale
University and at Columbia
University, a public health
nurse, a researcher and an
author of more than 147
articles and books.

AS A RESEARCHER:
In 1949, she met Lucile Petry Leone who

was the first Nurse Officer and decided to

join the Public Health Service. Her first
assignment was with the division of nursing
that focused on research and studies. They
performed studies with numerous hospitals
to improve nursing practice.

Abdellah was an advocate of degree programs

for nursing. Diploma programs, she believes,

were never meant to prepare nurses at the
professional level. Nursing education, she
argued, should be based on research; she
herself became among the first in her role as
an educator to focus on theory and research.
Her first studies were qualitative; they simply
described situations. As her career progressed,
her research evolved to include physiology,
chemistry, and behavioral sciences.

In 1957, Abdellah spearheaded a research

team in Manchester, Connecticut, that

established the groundwork for what became
known as progressive patient care. In this
framework, critical care patients were treated
in an intensive care unit, followed by a
transition to immediate care, and then home
care. The first two segments of the care
program proved very popular within the
caregiver profession. Abdellah is also credited
with developing the first nationally tested
coronary care unit as an outgrowth of her work
in Manchester.

In another innovation within her field,

Abdellah developed thePatient

Assessment of Care Evaluation(PACE),
a system of standards used to
measure the relative quality of
individual health-care facilities that
was still used in the healthcare
industry into the 21st century.
She was also one of the first people in the

healthcare industry to develop a classification

system for patient care and patient-oriented
records.

 In 1960, influenced by the desire to promote

patient-centered comprehensive nursing care,

Abdellah described nursing as a service to
individuals, to families, and therefore to society.
Nursing is based on an art and science that molds
the attitudes, intellectual competencies, and
technical skills of the individual nurse into the
desire and ability to help people, sick or well, cope
with their healthy need.
As a comprehensive service, nursing includes the
following:

1.) Recognizing the nursing problems of the

patient.
2.) Deciding the appropriate courses of action
to take in terms of relevant nursing principles;
3.) Providing continuous care of the individuals
total health needs.
4.) Providing continuous care to relieve pain and
discomfort and provide immediate security for
the individual.
5.) Adjusting the total nursing care plan to
meet the patients individual needs.

6.) Helping the individual to become more self-directing in

attaining or maintaining a healthy state of mind and body.
7.) Instructing nursing personnel and family to help the
individual do for himself that which he can within his
limitations;
8.) Helping the individual to adjust to his limitations and
emotional problems;
9.) Working with allied health proffesions in planning for
optimum health on local, state, national, and international
levels; and
10.) Carrying out continuous evaluation and research to
improve nursing techniques and to develop new
techniques to meet the health needs of people.

Abdellahs Typology of 21 Nursing Problems:

Abdellah is well known for her development of

theTwenty-One Nursing Problems Theorythat

has interrelated the concepts of health, nursing
problems, and problem-solving.
She views nursing as an art and a science that
mold the attitude, intellectual competencies,
and technical skills of the individual nurse into
the desire and ability to help individuals cope
with their health needs, whether they are ill or
well.

Abdellahs 21 Nursing Problems :

Click the video

1. To maintain good hygiene and

physical comfort
After colonoscopy, patients are usually

soiled from the procedure. It is therefore

important to clean them properly. Physical
comfort through proper positioning in bed.

2. To promote optimal activity:

exercise, rest, and sleep
Patients who were sedated during the

procedure stay in the unit until the effect of

these dation has decreased to a safe level. As
a nurse, make sure the patients are able to
rest and sleep well by providing a conducive
environment for rest, such as decreasing
environmental noise and dimming the light if
necessary.

3. To promote safety through prevention of accident, injury, or other

trauma and through theprevention of the spread of infection

Making sure the side rails are always up

when leaving the patient .One way we

prevent the spread of infection is through
proper disinfection of the equipments

4. To maintain good body mechanics and

prevent and correct deformity
Positioning the patient properly, allowing for

the normal anatomical position of body parts.

5. facilitate the maintenance of

a supply of oxygen to all body
cells
when patients manifest breathing problems,

oxygen is attached to them, usually via

nasal cannula. Sedated patients are
attached to cardiac monitor and pulse oxi
meter while having the oxygen delivered.
When the oxygen saturation falls below the
normal levels, the rate of oxygen is
increased accordingly, as per physicians
order.

6. To facilitate the maintenance

of nutrition of all body cells
patients undergoing endoscopic procedures

are on NPO. For this reason it is important to

monitor the blood glucose level. When the
patients blood glucose falls from the normal
value, we inject D50W to the patient or we
change the patients IVF to a dextrose
containing fluid.

7. To facilitate the maintenance

of elimination
Providing bedpans or urinals to patients and

at times, insertion of Foley catheter when the

patient is not able to void

8. To facilitate the maintenance of

fluid and electrolyte balance
Proper regulation of the intravenous

solutions as well as proper incorporations it

may have. An example is when patients
have low serum potassium; KCl is
incorporated in the solution.

9. To recognize the physiological responses

of the body to disease conditions
it is important to check the patients for

signs of internal gastrointestinal bleeding by

monitoring the blood pressure and cardiac
rate

10.To facilitate the maintenance of regulatory

mechanisms and functions
When a patient has a difficulty in breathing

and is showing an increase respiratory rate,

elevating the head part of the bed is done
to facilitate the respiratory function.

11. To facilitate the maintenance of sensory

function
Sometimes there are semi-conscious patients,

in these cases, it is still necessary to talk to

them while performing nursing interventions
to maintain their auditory sense.

12. To identify and accept positive and negative

expressions, feelings, and reactions
most patients feel anxious before

undergoing the procedures. It is necessary

to listen to the patients expressions and
allow them to ask questions. To decrease
their anxiety, proper instructions are given,
what they are to expect, how long the
procedure will take, what they should do
during and after the procedure as well as
other concerns.

13. To identify and accept interrelatedness of

emotions and organic illness
Encourage patients to verbalize their

feelings and allow them to cry when they

have the need to do so will help them
emotionally. Some patients are diagnosed
with malignancy after the procedure and
during this time the emotional needs of the
patient is a priority.

14. To facilitate the maintenance of effective verbal and nonverbal

communication

when patients are not able to express

themselves verbally, it is important to assess

for nonverbal cues. For instance when
patients are in pain, assessing for facial
grimacing.

15. To promote the development of

productive interpersonal relationships
allow the patients significant others to stay

with the patient before and after the

procedure. This allows for bonding and
promotes interpersonal relationship.

achievement of personal
spiritual goals
nurse usually visits the patients in the unit

Patients may benefit from this, allowing

them time to practice their faith.

17. To create and/or maintain a therapeutic

environment
providing proper lighting, proper room

temperature, a quiet environment are done to

patients staying in the unit.

18. To facilitate awareness of self as an

individual with varying physical, emotional, and
developmental needs
Allowing the parents to stay during the

procedure help the pediatric patients in

their emotional and developmental needs.

19. To accept the optimum possible goals in the light of limitations, physical, and emotional

The goals for each patient vary depending on

the capability of the patient. The nutritional

goal for a patient with a PEG tube for instance
will be different, knowing that the patient has
limited feeding options.

20. To use community resources as an aid in resolving problems arising from illness

Some patients live far from the city and

thus referral to health centers is sometimes

done.

21. To understand the role of social problems

as influencing factors in the cause of illness
Some patients who are diagnosed with

amoebic colitis for instance are advised to

avoid buying street foods to which the
preparation they are not sure of, and also
avoid drinking water that are not safe.

Abdellah considers her greatest

accomplishment being able to play a role in

establishing a foundation for nursing research
as a science. Her book,Patient-Centered
Approaches to Nursing, emphasizes the
science of nursing and has elicited changes
throughout nursing curricula. Her work, which
is based on the problem-solving method,
serves as a vehicle for delineating nursing
(patient) problems as the patient moves
toward a healthy outcome.

Abdellah is recognized as a leader in the

development of nursing research and nursing as a

profession within the Public Health Service (PHS)
and as an international expert on health
problems. She was named a living legend by
the American Academy of Nursing in 1994 and
was inducted into the National Womens Hall of
Fame in 2000 for a lifetime spent establishing and
leading essential health care programs for the
United States. In 2012, Abdellah was inducted into
the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame for
a lifetime of contributions to nursing.

Awards and Honors:

THE NATIONAL WOMENS HALL OF FAME

Her contributions to nursing and public health

have been recognized with almost 90

professional and academic honors, such as
the Allied Signal Achievement Award for
pioneering research in aging and Sigma Theta
Taus Lifetime Achievement Award.

Abdellah's leadership, her publications, and

her lifelong contributions have set a new

standard for nursing and for health care. Her
legacy of more than 60 years of extraordinary
accomplishments lives on nationally and
globally.