Mid-Range Theories

A theory is a set of principles, ideas, concepts, and relational statements that are meant to explain the existence of a certain phenomenon (Gray, Grove, & Sutherland, 2017). A theory’s principle elements includes concepts, existence statements, and relational statements. Middle-range theories are also known as practice theories because they have less abstraction than grand theories and bridge between theory and practice in nursing. When used as a framework, middle-range theories help to map the concepts and relationships between them at a narrower scope than grand theories. A research framework helps to explain the concepts of the phenomenon under investigation. It helps draw a conceptual map on the relationships between concepts.

The study by Cheng, Klainin-Yobas, Holyroyd, and Lopez (2018) on the perspectives of the aged about joint replacement surgery was based on the social cognitive theory. This theory focuses on the interaction of the environment, the individual and their behavior where the environment is the hospital and healthcare resources, the individual is the patient, and their behavior is how well they deal with osteoarthritis, get surgery and undergo rehabilitation to resume normal functioning. The concept in this framework include joint-replacement surgery, osteoarthritis, postoperative, pre-operative, and pre-operative. The demographic variables were gender, ethnicity, age, and diagnosis period of osteoarthritis. The research sampled 14 patients, 10 female, and 4 male, with a mean of 64.6 years for men and 68 years for women. There were 12 Chinese, 1 Caucasian, 1 Ski-Lankan, and 1 Malaysian. All participants had been diagnosed with osteoarthritis and 12 of them had regional anesthesia. The study was measuring three independent variables on the perception of the elderly about; (1) beginning of pain, (2) finding a solution, and (3) recovering from old body (Cheng et al., 2018). How well an individual coped with these three factors determined their overall opinion about joint-replacement surgery. The study was a qualitative descriptive type that relied on the opinions of the patients under study.

References

Cheng, R. T. S., Klainin-Yobas, P., Holyroyd, E., & Lopez, V. (2018). A “Journey to regain life” after joint replacement surgery: A qualitative descriptive study. Applied Nursing Research, 41, 5-10. doi:10.1016/j.apnr.2018.03.002

Gray, J. R., Grove, S. K., & Sutherland, S. (2017). Burns and Grove’s the practice of nursing research: Appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Health Sciences