Nursing models in special hospital settings

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Abstract
The use of theories and models in nursing is not merely an armchair activity indulged in by academic nurses in teaching and research institutions, but a means of looking critically at practice to improve the effectiveness of care. Nursing models help to provide descriptions of the contents of teaching and training courses. Models aim to specify: goals of action; descriptive terms for the recipients of services; nurse roles; likely sources of difficulty; the focus for intervention; and the intended consequences of the nursing model in applied practice. Examination reveals three separate dominant models of nursing practice in special hospitals: medico-legal, moral-retributional and educational. Nursing models are both useful and necessary for the provision of coherent teaching curricula and as a framework for the actual process of nursing. The need for consideration of model selection and model choice seems paramount in the current climate of special hospital nursing. A major advantage of educational nursing models seems that they allow the development and growth of nurses, with likely benefits for improved consumer services.