Monica Sanders

DOROTHY JOHNSON
 Overview
 August 21, 1919: Born in Savannah, Georgia
 1938: Received A.A. from Armstrong Junior
College in Savannah, Georgia
 1942: Received BSN from Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, Tennessee
 1948: Received MPH (Master of Public Health) from
Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts
 Overview Continued
 1944-1949: Assistant Professor of Pediatric
Nursing at Vanderbilt University
 1949-1978: Assistant Professor of Pediatric
Nursing, an Associate Professor of Nursing,
and a Professor of Nursing at UCLA
 January 1979: Professor Emeritus at UCLA
 February 1999: Passed away in Florida
Contributions to Nursing

 Research-based knowledge

 Nursing is a science and an art

 What is Nursing
 “An external regulatory force which acts to
preserve the organization and integration of
the patient’s behavior at an optimal level
under those conditions in which the behavior
constitutes a threat to physical or social
health, or in which illness is found”

 Johnson believed that “nursing was

concerned with man as an integrated whole…
 Goals of Nursing
 Nurses should assist the patient to become a
person:
1. Whose behavior is proportionate with social demands
2. Who is able to modify his behavior in ways that relate
to biological imperatives
3. Who is able to benefit to the fullest extent during
illness from the physician’s knowledge and skill
4. Whose behavior does not give evidence of
unnecessary trauma as a consequence of illness
 1968: Behavior System Model
 “…and this is the specific knowledge of order we require”
 Clients are “stressed” by a stimulus, either internal or
external
 Stressful stimuli create tensions within the patient that
results in disequilibrium
 Nursing care should (1) reduce stimuli that are stressors
and (2) provide support of the client’s natural defenses
and adaptive processes
 Developed as a result of Nightingale’s belief that the goal
of nursing is to help individuals prevent or recover from
disease or injury
Why A Behavior System Model?

 Believes each individual has patterned,

purposeful, repetitive ways of acting that
comprise a behavioral system specific to the
individual.

 Orderly and Predictable

 Subsystems
 Attachment or Affiliative: formation and attachment of a strong
social bond; provides security and survival
 Dependency: approval, attention, or recognition and physical
assistance
 Ingestive: meaning and structures of social events surrounding the
occasion when food is eaten
 Eliminative: human cultures have different socially acceptable
behaviors for excretion of waste
 Sexual: biological and social factors influence
 Aggressive: behaviors related to protection and self-preservation;
a defensive response from the individual when life or territory is
being threatened
 Achievement: provokes behavior that attempt to control the
environment. Intellectual, physical, creative, mechanical, and
social skills would be included
 Assumptions Regarding Subsystems
 Each subsystem is composed of four
structural characteristics:
Drives or Goal
Set or Predisposition to Act
Choices
Observable Outcome or the Individual’s
Behavior
 Assumptions Regarding the Model
 There is organization, interaction, interdependency and
integration of the parts and elements of behaviors that go to
make up the system
 A system tends to achieve balance among the various forces
operating within and upon it; man continually strives to
maintain a behavioral system balance and steady state by more
or less automatic adjustments and adaptations to the natural
forces occurring on him
 A behavioral system, which requires and results in some degree
of regularity and constancy in behavior, is essential to man. It is
functionally significant because it serves a useful purpose in
social life as well as for the individual
 System balance reflects adjustments and adaptations that are
successful in some way and to some degree
 Subsystems Continued
 Each Subsystem has three functional requirements:
1. System must be protected from noxious influences with
which system cannot cope (Protection)
2. Each subsystem must be nurtured through the input of
appropriate supplies from the environment
(Nurturance)
3. Each subsystem must be stimulated for use to enhance
growth and prevent stagnation (Stimulation)
 Choice of
Goal Set Behavior
Behavior
 Application of the Theory

 Assessment  Interventions
 Diagnosis Nurturance
Insufficiency Stimulation
Discrepancy Protection
Incompatibility Regulation
Dominance Control
 Evaluation
 References
 “Dorothy E. Johnson.” (2011). Retrieved from
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/diglib/sc_diglib/
biopages/djohnson.html
 George, J.B (Ed.). (2011). Nursing theories: The base
for professional nursing practice (6th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
 “Johnson Behavioral System Model.” (2002). Retrieved
from http://nursing.clayton.edu/ eichelberger/
theory/johnson_behavioral_system.htm
 “Johnson’s Behavior System Model.” (2011). Retrieved
from http://currentnursing.com/nursing_theory/
behavioural_system_model.html