IMOGENE M.

KING
Systems Framework and
Goal Attainment Theory
Prepared by: Lilibeth Tubalinal
Facts About Imogene King
 Imogene M. King was born in 1923, the
youngest of three children
 She received her basic nursing education

from St. John’s Hospital School of Nursing in

St. Louis, Missouri, graduating in 1945
 Her B.S. in nursing and education with minors

in philosophy and chemistry (1948) and M.S.

in nursing (1957) are from St. Louis
University and her Ed.D (1961) is from
Teachers College, Columbia University, New
York.
 She has done postdoctoral study in research

design, statistics, and computers

Facts (cont..)
 From 1947 to 1958, King worked as an
Instructor in Medical-Surgical Nursing and as
an assistant director at St. John’s Hospital of
Nursing.
 From 1961 to 1966, King was an Associate
Professor of Nursing at Loyola University in
Chicago, where she developed a Master’s
Degree program in Nursing based on a nursing
conceptual framework
 Her first theory article appeared in 1964 in the
journal Nursing Science edited by Dr. Martha
Rogers
Facts (cont..)
 Between 1966 and 1968, King served as

Assistant Chief of Research Grants Branch,

Division of Nursing in the United States
Department of Health, Education and Welfare
 While she was in Washington, D.C., her article

“A Conceptual Frame of Reference for

Nursing” was published in Nursing Research
(1968)
 From 1968 to 1972, King was the director of

the School of Nursing at Ohio State University

in Columbus.
Facts (cont..)
 Book published in Ohio: “Toward a Theory for

Nursing: General Concepts of Human

Behavior (1971). Her book was awarded the
American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year
 King served as the Coordinator of Research in

Clinical Nursing at the Loyola Medical Center,

Department of Nursing from 1978 – 1980
 From 1972-1975, she was a member of the

Defense Advisory Committee on Women in

the Services for the United States Department
of Defense
Facts (cont..)
 1981, second book published: A Theory for

Nursing: Systems, Concepts, Process

 1986, third book published: Curriculum and

Instruction in Nursing
 King retired in 1990 and is currently
professor emeritus at the University of South
Florida, where she continues to lecture
 King has been an active member of the

American Nurses Association, the Florida

Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau
International
Facts (cont..)
 Served as a delegate from the Florida Nurses

Association to the American Nurses

Association House of delegates
 Currently, she is one of the founding
members of a nursing organization, the King
International Nursing group (KING),
established to facilitate the spread and use of
her interacting systems framework, Theory of
Goal Attainment, and related theories
 In 1996, she received the Jessie M.Scott

Award at the American Nurses Association

convention
King’s model is composed of three interacting
systems: (Personal, Interpersonal and Social
System)
 These are used to establish a nurse-client

relationship and utilized by the nurse to form a

strong foundation for a dynamic and
interactive environment.
 King discussed the three health needs of

human beings:
1. Need for information

2. Need for care for illness prevention

3. Need for total care when a person doesn’t

have the capacity to help themselves
Interacting Systems Framework:

Personal – how the nurse views and integrates

self based from personal goals and beliefs

Interpersonal – how the nurse interrelates

with a co-worker or patient, particularly in a
nurse-patient relationship

Social – how the nurse interacts with co-

workers, superiors, subordinates and the
client environment in general
Elements of the conceptual system
 The conceptual system has health as the goal
for nursing
 Structure is represented by three open systems.
 Functions are demonstrated in reciprocal
relations of individuals in interaction and
transactions.
 Resources include both people (health
professionals and their clients) and money,
goods, and services for items needed to carry
out specific activities.
 Decision making occurs when choices are
made in resource allocation to support
attaining system goals.
Metaparadigm in Nursing
 Person

King described a person existing in an

open system as a spiritual being and
rational thinker who makes choices,
selects alternative courses of action,
and has the ability to record their
history through their own language
and symbols, unique, holistic and
have different needs, wants and goals.
Metaparadigm in Nursing
Health
King viewed health as the ability of a person
to adjust to the stressors that the internal
and external environment exposes to the
client. It is the maximal use of the potentials
that a person can perform to achieve balance
in one’s health. Adjusting to the environment
bring the client back to their usual roles
before the reaction occurred
Metaparadigm in Nursing
 Environment
The process of balance involving internal and
external interactions inside the social system.
Reactions from the interaction between the
internal and external environment can be
biological, psychological, physical, social or
spiritual.
External environment is the factor that exists
outside the boundary of the open system
Internal environment is the exact opposite as
adapted by the Neuman’s Systems model
Metaparadigm in Nursing
 Nursing
An act wherein the nurse interacts and
communicates with the client. The nurse helps
the client identify the existing health condition,
exploring and agreeing on activities to promote
health.

The goal of the nurse in King’s theory is to help

the client maintain health through health
promotion and maintenance, restoration, and
caring for the sick and dying.
 The goal of the nurse is to help individuals
maintain health or regain health.

 Nursing’s domain includes promoting,

maintaining, and restoring health, and caring
for the sick, injured, and dying.

 The function of the professional nurse is to

interpret information in what is known as the
nursing process to plan, implement, and
evaluate nursing care for individuals, families,
groups, and communities.
Assumptions
 Human beings are open systems in constant
interaction with their environment

 Nursing’s focus is human beings interacting

with their environment

 Nursing’s goal is to help individuals and

groups maintain health.
Goal Attainment Theory
Action
 Action is a means of behavior or activities

that are towards the accomplishment of

certain act.
 It is both physical and mental
 Actions are aimed towards setting goals

through communication between the nurse

and the client then exploring and agreeing
means to perform them thereby achieving the
set goal.
Goal Attainment Theory
Reaction
 Is a form of reacting or a response to a certain

stimuli

Interaction
 Any situation wherein the nurse relates and deals

with a clientele or patient

Open System is the absence of boundary existence,

where a dynamic interaction between the internal
and external environment can exchange
information without barriers or hindrances.
Proposition of King’s Goal
Attainment Theory
King gave a proposal wherein goal attainment is
possible if the nurse will fulfill several conditions:

 If a continuous accuracy is currently a nurse-

patient interaction, a transaction will happen
 If nurse and patient will build a transaction,

goals will be achieved

 If goals are achieved, satisfaction will happen
 If goals are met, efficient nursing care will

happen
 If role anticipation and performance in the
nurse and patient are the same, transactions
will happen

 If role disagreement happens in both nurse

and patient, stress would be the result

 If nurse with exceptional skill and knowledge

correspond adequate information to patient,
the same goals and accomplishment will
happen
King’s Conceptual System
Purposes:
1. Name concepts necessary to nursing as a discipline

2. Provide for the derivation of theories that are

tested through research as part of the
development of the scientific base for nursing
knowledge
3. Provide an organizing structure for nursing
curricula
4. Lead to nursing practice, based in theory, that
supports quality care in all settings in which
nursing occurs.