- According to Levine, the core, or central concept, of Levine’s theory is conservation.
- When a person is in a state of conservation, it means that individual adaptive responses conform change productively, and with the least expenditure of effort, while preserving optimal function and identity.
- Myra Levine described the Four Conservation Principles. These principles focus on conserving an individual's wholeness.
Metaparadigm
MAN / PERSON
- Individuals continuously defend their wholeness in constant interaction with their environments and choose the most economical, frugal, energy-sparing options available to safeguard their integrity.
- A person is a holistic being, who is sentinent, thinking, future-oriented and past-aware. It
- A holistic being who has open and fluid boundaries that co-exist with the environment.
- He is "whole"
- A unified social being
- "Whole" not only in the physical aspect but also with regards to psychosocio-cultural and spiritual aspects
- A person is a sense of identity and worth.
- A unique individual in unity and integrity, feeling, believing, thinking and whole system of system.
HEALTH
- State of being "whole" not just the absence of illness or disease.
- Is determined by the ability to function in a reasonably normal manner
- It is culturally determined and influence by ethos and beliefs.
- Health is wholeness and successful adaptation.
- Not merely healing of an afflicted part, it is return to daily activities, selfhood and the ability to once more pursue by an individual, his or her own interest without constraints.
- Health can be socially determined (through their interaction with the significant others). Failure in doing so is a negative scenario.
ENVIRONMENT
- Where the person is constantly and actively involved.
- It is where we live our lives.
- Composed of all the experiences of the individuals.
- It pertains to the internal (physiologic) and external environment (perceptual, operational, and conceptual).
NURSING
- Is a human interaction designed to promote wholeness through adaptation
- Nursing care is both supportive and therapeutic (to achieve maximum level of adaptation).
- Promote wholeness through the use of the four conservation principles.
- Realizing that every individual requires a unique and separate clusters of activity.
- Individual integrity is his abiding concern and it is the nurse's responsibility to assist him to defend and to seek its relization.
- The major area of concern for nurses in maintenance of a person's wholeness.
