Martha Rogers was a nurse theorist who is the nursing theory‘s proponent: “Science of Unitary Human Beings.” Get to know the major concepts behind her theory, including a section about her biography and career as a nurse.
Table of Contents
- Biography of Martha E. Rogers
- Early Life
- Education
- Career and Appointments
- Theory
- The Science of Unitary Human Beings
- Works
- Awards and Honors
- Death
- Rogers’ Theory of Unitary Human Beings
- Assumptions
- Major Concepts
- Human-unitary human beings
- Health
- Nursing
- Scope of Nursing
- Environmental Field
- Energy Field
- Subconcepts
- Openness
- Pandimensional
- Pattern
- Principles of Homeodynamics
- Principle of Reciprocity
- Principle of Synchrony
- Principle of Integrality (Synchrony + Reciprocity)
- Principle of Resonancy
- Principle of Helicy
- Science of Unitary Human Beings and Nursing Process
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Conclusion
- Recommended Resources
- See Also
- References
- External Links
Biography of Martha E. Rogers
Martha Elizabeth Rogers (May 12, 1914 – March 13, 1994) was an American nurse, researcher, theorist, and author widely known for developing the Science of Unitary Human Beings and her landmark book, An Introduction the Theoretical Basis of Nursing.
She believes that a patient can never be separated from their environment when addressing health and treatment. Her knowledge about the coexistence of the human and his or her environment contributed a lot in changing toward better health.
Early Life
Martha Rogers was born on May 12, 1914, sharing a birthday with Florence Nightingale. She was the eldest of four children of Bruce Taylor Rogers and Lucy Mulholland Keener Rogers.
She had a thirst for knowledge at an early age. She found Kindergarten to be “terribly exciting” and had a love and passion for books that her parents fostered. Her father introduced her to the public library at the age of 3, where she loved storytime. She liked to go off by herself with a book. And by the fourth grade, she had read every book in her school library. She used to go to the public library before I was 6, even before she could read. She was well acquainted with the public library and started reading eight books at a time. Her father used to be bothered if she was skimming, but he, later on, discovered that the young Rogers was learning fast.
In fact, Rogers already knew the Greek alphabet by age 10. By the sixth grade, she already finished reading all 20 volumes of The Child’s Book of Knowledge and was into the Encyclopedia Britannica.
She also loved to read various topics like anthropology, archaeology, cosmology, ethnography, astronomy, ethics, psychology, eastern philosophy, and aesthetics. By her senior year, she had completed all the high school math courses and took a college-level algebra course where she was the only female in the class.
Education
Initially, Martha Rogers wanted to do something that would hopefully contribute to social welfare like law and medicine. However, she only studied medicine for a couple of years because women in medicine were not particularly desirable during her time. Instead, along with her friend, Rogers entered a local hospital that had a school of nursing. But just like Nightingale, her parents weren’t really any happier over that decision than they had between over medicine.
She then transferred to Knoxville General Hospital’s nursing program and was one of 25 students in her class. She described her training as at times as being miserable because the training was like the “Army, pre-Nightingale.” She even spent a week at home, thinking of not returning to school but eventually enjoyed working with people and patients.
Rogers received her nursing diploma from the Knoxville General Hospital School of Nursing in 1936, then earned her Public Health Nursing degree from George Peabody College in Tennessee in 1937. She sold her car to pay for tuition and entered a Master’s degree program full-time.
Her Master’s degree was from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1945, and her Doctorate in Nursing was given to her from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1954. She completed her studies in 1954, and the title of her dissertation was “The association of maternal and fetal factors with the development of behavior problems among elementary school children.”
Career and Appointments
After Martha Rogers graduated from George Peabody College in Tennessee in 1937, she worked for the Children’s Fund of Michigan for two years as public health nurse.
In 1940, she accepted a position in Hartford, CT, at the Visiting Nurse Association. She worked at the Association for five years, first as an Assistant Supervisor, then as the Assistant Education Director, and lastly as the acting Director of Education. At the same time, she completed her coursework at Teacher’s College and completed her degree requirements (Master of Arts) in 1945.
After completing her degree in 1945, she sent out many job inquiry letters, considered staying in Hartford but settled on a position as the Executive Director at the Visiting Nurse Service in Phoenix, Arizona. She believed she might have been the first nurse in Arizona with a master’s degree, and from 1945 to 1951, she built up the Visiting Nursing Service in Phoenix.
While a doctoral student, she did spend a year as a visiting lecturer at a Catholic University in Washington, DC.
Rogers was then appointed Professor and Head of the Division of Nursing at New York University right after graduating from Hopkins. She was encouraged to accept the position by Ruth Freeman. When Rogers arrived at NYU, Vera Fry was the previous Division Head, and Joan Hoexter stated that all of the nursing faculty left except her. She was also a Fellow for the American Academy of Nursing.
Rogers officially retired as Professor and Head of the Division of Nursing in 1975 after 21 years of service. Following her retirement, she continued to teach at NYU, was a frequent presenter at scientific conferences throughout the world, and consistently refined her conceptual system.
Rogers was also actively involved in professional nursing organizations and associations concerned with education and scholarship. In 1979, she became Professor Emerita and continued to have an active role in nursing and the Science of Unitary Human Beings.
Theory
The Science of Unitary Human Beings
Martha Rogers’ theory is known as the Science of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB). The theory views nursing as both a science and an art as it provides a way to view the unitary human being, who is integral with the universe. The unitary human being and his or her environment are one. Nursing focuses on people and the manifestations that emerge from the mutual human-environmental field process.
SUHB contains two dimensions: the science of nursing, which is the knowledge specific to the field of nursing that comes from scientific research; and the art of nursing, which involves using the science of nursing creatively to help better the lives of the patient.
Her model addresses the importance of the environment as an integral part of the patient and uses that knowledge to help nurses blend the science and art of nursing to ensure patients have a smooth recovery and get back to the best health possible.
There are eight concepts in Rogers’ nursing theory: energy field, openness, pattern, pan-dimensionality, hemodynamic principles, resonance, helicy, and integrality.
Rogers’ development of the said theory has become an influential nursing theory in the United States. It was considered profound and was too ambitious when first introduced, but now it is thought to be ahead of its time. Her conceptual framework has greatly influenced nursing by offering an alternative to traditional nursing approaches.
Her theory is discussed further below.
Works
Martha Rogers wrote three books that enriched the learning experience and influenced nursing research for countless students: Educational Revolution in Nursing (1961), Reveille in Nursing (1964).
In about 1963, Rogers edited a journal called Nursing Science. During that time, Rogers was beginning to formulate ideas about the publication of her third book, An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing (1970), the last of which introduced the four Rogerian Principles of Homeodynamics.
Her publications include Theoretical Basis of Nursing (1970), Nursing Science and Art: A Prospective (1988), Nursing: Science of Unitary, Irreducible, Human Beings Update (1990), and Vision of Space-Based Nursing (1990).
Awards and Honors
Martha Rogers was honored with numerous awards and citations for her sustained contributions to nursing and science. In 1996, she was posthumously inducted into the American Nurses Association’s Hall of Fame.
Death
Martha Rogers died on March 13, 1994, and was buried in Knoxville, Tennessee. She has a memorial placed on the sidewalk near her childhood home in Knoxville.
Rogers’ Theory of Unitary Human Beings
The belief of the coexistence of the human and the environment has greatly influenced the process of change toward better health. In short, a patient can’t be separated from his or her environment when addressing health and treatment. This view leads and opened Martha E. Rogers’ theory, known as the “Science of Unitary Human Beings,” which allowed nursing to be considered one of the scientific disciplines.
Rogers’ theory defined Nursing as “an art and science that is humanistic and humanitarian. It is directed toward the unitary human and is concerned with the nature and direction of human development. The goal of nurses is to participate in the process of change.”
According to Rogers, the Science of Unitary Human Beings contains two dimensions: the science of nursing, which is the knowledge specific to the field of nursing that comes from scientific research; and the art of nursing, which involves using the science of nursing creatively to help better the lives of the patient.
Assumptions
Rogers’ Theory of Unitary Human Beings’ assumptions are as follows: (1) Man is a unified whole possessing his own integrity and manifesting characteristics that are more than and different from the sum of his parts. (2) Man and the environment are continuously exchanging matter and energy with one another. (3) The life process evolves irreversibly and unidirectionally along the space-time continuum. (4) Pattern and organization identify the man and reflect his innovative wholeness. And lastly, (5) Man is characterized by the capacity for abstraction and imagery, language and thought sensation, and emotion.
Major Concepts
The following are the major concepts and metaparadigm of Martha Rogers’ nursing theory:
Human-unitary human beings
A person is defined as an indivisible, pan-dimensional energy field identified by a pattern and manifesting characteristics specific to the whole. That can’t be predicted from knowledge of the parts. A person is also a unified whole, having its own distinct characteristics that can’t be viewed by looking at, describing, or summarizing the parts.
Health
Rogers defines health as an expression of the life process. The characteristics and behavior coming from the mutual, simultaneous interaction of the human and environmental fields and health and illness are part of the same continuum. The multiple events occurring during the life process show how a person is achieving his or her maximum health potential. The events vary in their expressions from greatest health to those incompatible with the maintaining life process.
Nursing
It is the study of unitary, irreducible, indivisible human and environmental fields: people and their world. Rogers claims that nursing exists to serve people, and the safe practice of nursing depends on the nature and amount of scientific nursing knowledge the nurse brings to his or her practice.
Scope of Nursing
Nursing aims to assist people in achieving their maximum health potential. Maintenance and promotion of health, prevention of disease, nursing diagnosis, intervention, and rehabilitation encompass the scope of nursing’s goals.
Nursing is concerned with people-all people-well and sick, rich and poor, young and old. The arenas of nursing’s services extend into all areas where there are people: at home, at school, at work, at play, in hospital, nursing home, and clinic; on this planet and now moving into outer space.
Environmental Field
“An irreducible, indivisible, pan-dimensional energy field identified by pattern and integral with the human field.”
Energy Field
The energy field is the fundamental unit of both the living and the non-living. It provides a way to view people and the environment as irreducible wholes. The energy fields continuously vary in intensity, density, and extent.
Subconcepts
Openness
There are no boundaries that stop energy flow between the human and environmental fields, openness in Rogers’ theory. It refers to qualities exhibited by open systems; human beings and their environment are open systems.
Pandimensional
Pan-dimensionality is defined as a “non-linear domain without spatial or temporal attributes.” Humans’ parameters to describe events are arbitrary, and the present is relative; there is no temporal ordering of lives.
Synergy is defined as the unique behavior of whole systems, unpredicted by any behaviors of their component functions taken separately.
Human behavior is synergistic.
Pattern
Rogers defined the pattern as the distinguishing characteristic of an energy field seen as a single wave. It is an abstraction and gives identity to the field.
Principles of Homeodynamics
Homeodynamics should be understood as a dynamic version of homeostasis (a relatively steady state of internal operation in the living system).
Homeodynamic principles postulate a way of viewing unitary human beings. The three principles of homeodynamics are resonance, helicy, and integrality.
Principle of Reciprocity
Postulates the inseparability of man and environment and predicts that sequential changes in the life process are continuous, probabilistic revisions occurring out of the interactions between man and environment.
Principle of Synchrony
This principle predicts that change in human behavior will be determined by the simultaneous interaction of the actual state of the human field and the environmental field’s actual state at any given point in space-time.
Principle of Integrality (Synchrony + Reciprocity)
Because of the inseparability of human beings and their environment, sequential changes in the life processes are continuous revisions occurring from the interactions between human beings and their environment.
Between the two entities, there is a constant mutual interaction and mutual change whereby simultaneous molding is taking place at the same time.
Principle of Resonancy
It speaks to the nature of the change occurring between human and environmental fields. The life process in human beings is a symphony of rhythmical vibrations oscillating at various frequencies.
It identifies the human field and the environmental field by wave patterns manifesting continuous change from longer waves of a lower frequency to shorter waves of higher frequency.
Principle of Helicy
The human-environment field is a dynamic, open system in which change is continuous due to the constant interchange between the human and environment.
This change is also innovative. Because of constant interchange, an open system is never the same at any two moments; rather, it is continually new or different.
Science of Unitary Human Beings and Nursing Process
The nursing process has three steps in Rogers’ Theory of Unitary Human Beings: assessment, voluntary mutual patterning, and evaluation.
The assessment areas are the total pattern of events at any given point in space-time, simultaneous states of the patient and his or her environment, rhythms of the life process, supplementary data, categorical disease entities, subsystem pathology, and pattern appraisal. The assessment should be a comprehensive assessment of the human and environmental fields.
Mutual patterning of the human and environmental fields includes:
- sharing knowledge
- offering choices
- empowering the patient
- fostering patterning
- evaluation
- repeat pattern appraisal, which includes nutrition, work/leisure activities, wake/sleep cycles, relationships, pain, and fear/hopes
- identify dissonance and harmony
- validate appraisal with the patient
- self-reflection for the patient
Strengths
Martha Rogers’ concepts provide a worldview from which nurses may derive theories and hypotheses and propose relationships specific to different situations.
Rogers’ theory is not directly testable due to a lack of concrete hypotheses, but it is testable in principle.
Weaknesses
Rogers’ model does not define particular hypotheses or theories, for it is an abstract, unified, and highly derived framework.
Testing the concepts’ validity is questionable because its concepts are not directly measurable.
The theory was believed to be profound and was too ambitious because the concepts are extremely abstract.
Rogers claimed that nursing exists to serve people. However, nurses’ roles were not clearly defined.
The purpose of nurses is to promote health and well-being for all persons wherever they are. However, Rogers’ model has no concrete definition of a health state.
Conclusion
The Science of Unitary Human Beings is highly generalizable as the concepts and ideas are not confined to a specific nursing approach, unlike the usual way of other nurse theorists defining the major concepts of a theory.
Rogers gave much emphasis on how a nurse should view the patient. She developed principles that emphasize that a nurse should view the client as a whole.
Her statements, in general, made us believe that a person and his or her environment are integral to each other. A patient can’t be separated from his or her environment when addressing health and treatment. Her conceptual framework has greatly influenced nursing by offering an alternative to traditional nursing approaches.
Recommended Resources
Recommended books and resources to learn more about nursing theory:
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- Nursing Theorists and Their Work (10th Edition) by Alligood
Nursing Theorists and Their Work, 10th Edition provides a clear, in-depth look at nursing theories of historical and international significance. Each chapter presents a key nursing theory or philosophy, showing how systematic theoretical evidence can enhance decision making, professionalism, and quality of care. - Knowledge Development in Nursing: Theory and Process (11th Edition)
Use the five patterns of knowing to help you develop sound clinical judgment. This edition reflects the latest thinking in nursing knowledge development and adds emphasis to real-world application. The content in this edition aligns with the new 2021 AACN Essentials for Nursing Education. - Nursing Knowledge and Theory Innovation, Second Edition: Advancing the Science of Practice(2nd Edition)
This text for graduate-level nursing students focuses on the science and philosophy of nursing knowledge development. It is distinguished by its focus on practical applications of theory for scholarly, evidence-based approaches. The second edition features important updates and a reorganization of information to better highlight the roles of theory and major philosophical perspectives. - Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice(5th Edition)
The only nursing research and theory book with primary works by the original theorists. Explore the historical and contemporary theories that are the foundation of nursing practice today. The 5th Edition, continues to meet the needs of today’s students with an expanded focus on the middle range theories and practice models. - Strategies for Theory Construction in Nursing(6th Edition)
The clearest, most useful introduction to theory development methods. Reflecting vast changes in nursing practice, it covers advances both in theory development and in strategies for concept, statement, and theory development. It also builds further connections between nursing theory and evidence-based practice. - Middle Range Theory for Nursing (4th Edition)
This nursing book’s ability to break down complex ideas is part of what made this book a three-time recipient of the AJN Book of the Year award. This edition includes five completely new chapters of content essential for nursing books. New exemplars linking middle range theory to advanced nursing practice make it even more useful and expand the content to make it better. - Nursing Research: Methods and Critical Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice
This book offers balanced coverage of both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. This edition features new content on trending topics, including the Next-Generation NCLEX® Exam (NGN). - Nursing Research (11th Edition)
AJN award-winning authors Denise Polit and Cheryl Beck detail the latest methodologic innovations in nursing, medicine, and the social sciences. The updated 11th Edition adds two new chapters designed to help students ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of research methods. Extensively revised content throughout strengthens students’ ability to locate and rank clinical evidence.
See Also
Recommended site resources related to nursing theory:
- Nursing Theories and Theorists: The Definitive Guide for Nurses MUST READ!
In this guide for nursing theories, we aim to help you understand what comprises a nursing theory and its importance, purpose, history, types or classifications, and give you an overview through summaries of selected nursing theories.
Other resources related to nursing theory:
- Betty Neuman: Neuman Systems Model
- Dorothea Orem: Self-Care Deficit Theory
- Dorothy Johnson: Behavioral System Model
- Faye Abdellah: 21 Nursing Problems Theory
- Florence Nightingale: Environmental Theory
- Hildegard Peplau: Interpersonal Relations Theory
- Ida Jean Orlando: Deliberative Nursing Process Theory
- Imogene King: Theory of Goal Attainment
- Jean Watson: Theory of Human Caring
- Lydia Hall: Care, Cure, Core Nursing Theory
- Madeleine Leininger: Transcultural Nursing Theory
- Martha Rogers: Science of Unitary Human Beings
- Myra Estrin Levine: The Conservation Model of Nursing
- Nola Pender: Health Promotion Model
- Sister Callista Roy: Adaptation Model of Nursing
- Virginia Henderson: Nursing Need Theory
References
- Rogers, M. E. (1989). An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis
- Hektor LM (1989) Martha E Rogers: A Life History. Nursing Science Quarterly 2; 2, 63-73.
- Safier, G. (1977). Contemporary American leaders in nursing: An oral history. New York: McGraw Hill.
External Links
With contributions by Wayne, G., Vera, M.
