Ida Jean Orlando-Pelletier (August 12, 1926 November 28, 2007) was

an internationally known psychiatric health nurse, theorist and researcher

who developed the Deliberative Nursing Process Theory.Her theory allows
nurses to create an effective nursing care plan that can also be easily
adapted when and if any complications arise with the patient.

Early Life
Orlando was a first generation Irish American born on August 12, 1926. She
dedicated her life studying nursing and graduated in 1947 and received a
Bachelor of Science degree in public health nursing in 1951. In 1954, she
completed her Master of Arts in Mental Health consultation. While studying
she also worked intermittently and sometimes concurrently as a staff nurse
in OB, MS, ER; as a supervisor in a general hospital, and as an assistant
director and a teacher of several courses. And in 1961, she was married to
Robert Pelletier and lived in the Boston area.

Education

Ida Jean Orlando

As for being a respectable and credible role-model, Orlando was well
educated with many advanced degrees in nursing. In 1947, she received a
diploma in nursing from the Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital School of Nursing in
New York. In 1951, she received a Bachelor of Science degree in public
health nursing from St. Johns University in Brooklyn, New York. And in 1954,
Orlando received her Master of Arts degree in mental health consultation
from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Career and Appointments

Orlando had a diverse career, working as a practitioner, consultant,
researcher, and educator in nursing. Orlando devoted her life to mental
health and psychiatric nursing, working as a clinical nurse and researcher.

Orlando used to work in a hospital exclusive for childbirth in

a short span of time.
After receiving her masters degree in 1954, Orlando went to the Yale
University School of Nursing in New Haven, Connecticut as an associate
professor of mental health and psychiatric nursing for eight years. She was
awarded a federal grant and became a research associate and the principal
project investigator of a National Institute of Mental health Institute of the
United States Public Health Services grant entitled Integration of Mental
Health Concepts in a Basic Curriculum. The project sought to identify those
factors relevant to the integration of psychiatric-mental health principles into
the nursing curriculum.

Orlando (left) already worked as a nurse before going to St.

Johns University in Brooklyn, New York for her Bachelor of Science degree in public health
nursing
During 1958-1961, Orlando, as an associate professor and the director of the
graduate program in mental health and psychiatric nursing at Yale
University, used her proposed conceptual nursing model as the foundation
for the curriculum of the program. From 1962-1972, Orlando served as a

clinical nurse consultant at Mclean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. In

this position, she studied the interactions of nurses with clients, other nurses
and other staff members and how these interactions affected the process of
the nurses help to clients. Orlando convinced the administration that an
educational program for nurses was needed, whereupon Mclean Hospital
initiated an educational program based on her nursing model.

Bachelor of Science degree in public health nursing from St.

Johns University in Brooklyn, New York
From 1972 to 1984, she also served on the board of the Harvard Community
Health Plan in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1981, Orlando became an educator at Boston University School of Nursing
and held administrative positions from 1984 to 1987 at Metropolitan State
Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts. In September 1987, she became the
Assistant director of Nursing for Education and Research at the said
institution. She was also a project consultant for the Mental Health Project for
Associate Degree Faculties created by the New England Board of Higher
Education. Finally in 1992, Orlando retired and received the Nursing Living
Legend award by the Massachusetts Registered Nurse Association.

Deliberative Nursing Process Theory

Main Article: Ida Jean Orlandos Deliberative Nursing Process Theory
Orlando developed her theory from a study conducted at the Yale University
School of Nursing, integrating mental health concepts into a basic nursing
curriculum. She proposed that patients have their own meanings and
interpretations of situations and therefore nurses must validate their
inferences and analyses with patients before drawing conclusions.

Class photo during her graduation at St. Johns University in

Brooklyn, New York
The theory was published in The Dynamic Nurse-Patient Relationship:
Function, Process, and Principles (NLN Classics in Nursing Theory) in 1961.
Her book purposed a contribution to concern about the nurse-patient
relationship, the nurses professional role and identity, and the knowledge
development distinct to nursing.
Orlandos nursing theory stresses the reciprocal relationship between patient
and nurse. What the nurse and the patient say and do affects them both. She
views the professional function of nursing as finding out and meeting the
patients immediate need for help.

Master of Arts degree in mental health consultation from

Teachers College, Columbia University
She also described her model as revolving around the following five major
interrelated concepts: function of professional nursing, presenting behavior,
immediate reaction, nursing process discipline, and improvement. The
function of professional nursing is the organizing principle. Presenting
behavior is the patients problematic situation. The immediate reaction is the
internal response. The nursing process discipline is the investigation into the
patients needs. And lastly, improvement is the resolution to the patients
situation.

The Deliberative Nursing Process has five stages: assessment, diagnosis,

planning, implementation, and evaluation. Nurses use the standard nursing
process in Orlandos Nursing Process Discipline Theory to produce positive
outcomes or patient improvement. Orlandos key focus was the definition of
the function of nursing. The model provides a framework for nursing, but the
use of her theory does not exclude nurses from using other nursing theories
while caring for patients.

Orlandos second book The Discipline and Teaching of Nursing

Process published in 1972.

Works
After working as a researcher, she wrote a book on her findings from Yale,
entitled The Dynamic Nurse-Patient Relationship: Function, Process, and
Principles. Her book was published in 1961. A year later, she also continued
her research studies published her second book The Discipline and Teaching
of Nursing Process in 1972.

Awards and Honors

Orlando retired from nursing in 1992. After becoming well-educated,
researching over 2,000 nurse-patient interactions, and coming up with a
theory that changed nursing, she was recognized as a Nursing Living
Legend by the Massachusetts Registered Nurse Association.

Death
Orlando died on November 28, 2007 at the age of 81.

See Also

Nursing Theorists and Theories

Ida Jean Orlandos Deliberative Nursing Process Theory

External Links

Ida Jean Orlando: A Nursing Process Theory (Notes on Nursing

Theories)
Nursing Theorists and Their Work, 8th Edition

References

George, J.B. (2011). Nursing theories: The base for professional

nursing practice (6th ed.). Philadelphia: Pearson.

Potter, P.A., & Perry, A.G. (2012). Fundamentals of nursing (8th ed.).

St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier.

Schmieding, N. (1990). An integrative nursing theoretical
framework. Journal of Advanced. Nursing, 15(4), 463-467.