Imogene King is one of many influential women to make a lasting impact on nursing. The theory of goal attainment, a theory she created, is a middle-range theory that discusses the influence nurses and patients collectively have on goal setting. For anyone in the healthcare field, King’s theory is important in that it helps healthcare workers understand the way they should interact with patients; the theory also discusses individualized goals for the patient. Healthcare is always changing; however, one thing that has not changed is the notion of setting goals and evaluating the patient’s achievements. King “urged nursing professionals to focus on the organization of nursing knowledge, arguing that a theoretical body of knowledge was necessary …show more content…
King received a nursing diploma, bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees over the span of her life. The theory of goal attainment was one of many nursing theories she authored. The theory of goal attainment was introduced in 1961. “The essence of goal attainment theory is that nurse and patient work together to define and reach goals that they set together” (Snowden, Donnell, & Duffy, 2010, p. 421). King places a lot of emphasis on the fact that the patient is a social being three fundamental needs. King’s theory of goal attainment encompasses the five steps of the nursing process and originated from her conceptual framework (Snowden, Donnell, & Duffy, 2010, p. 421).
The goal of attainment contains major concepts including “communication, growth and development, interaction, perception, role, space, stress, time, and transaction” (Butts & Rich, 2015, p. 420). Propositions and hypothesis require a collaborative effort on the part of both the patient and nurse. Imogene King realized that changes needed to be made to improve outcomes for patients in a world that was changing daily. King’s theory evaluated the best intervention to provide the most efficient outcome (Butts & Rich,