Developmental Theories in Nursing

Written By Meljun Perez

Help nurses understand normal growth and development across the lifespan

  1. Guide age-appropriate care, teaching, and communication

  2. Identify delays, risks, or needs for interventions

  3. Provide a framework for holistic, patient-centered care

Major Developmental Theories in Nursing

Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

  • Focus: Psychosocial development across 8 stages of life

  • Each stage has a crisis to resolve → shapes personality and coping

  • Examples:

    • Infant (0–1 yr): Trust vs. Mistrust

    • Adolescent (12–18 yrs): Identity vs. Role Confusion

    • Older Adult: Integrity vs. Despair

  • Nursing Use: Helps guide patient education, emotional support, and care plans.

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory

  • Focus: Thinking and reasoning stages in children

  • Stages:

    • Sensorimotor (0–2 yrs) → learns through senses

    • Preoperational (2–7 yrs) → magical thinking, egocentrism

    • Concrete Operational (7–11 yrs) → logical but concrete thinking

    • Formal Operational (12+ yrs) → abstract and logical reasoning

  • Nursing Use: Shapes teaching strategies (simple words for children, abstract concepts for teens/adults).

Freud’s Psychosexual Theory

  • Focus: Personality develops through psychosexual stages

  • Stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital

  • Unresolved conflicts → fixation later in life

  • Nursing Use: Historical relevance; less used today, but helps understand unconscious behaviors.

Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory

  • Focus: Moral reasoning development

  • Levels:

    • Preconventional (obedience/punishment, self-interest)

    • Conventional (conformity, law/order)

    • Postconventional (universal ethics, social contracts)

  • Nursing Use: Guides understanding of how patients make ethical decisions.

Havighurst’s Developmental Tasks

  • Focus: Tasks people must achieve at different life stages for healthy development

  • Examples:

    • Adolescents → Achieving identity, independence

    • Adults → Career, family, civic responsibility

    • Older Adults → Adjusting to aging and retirement

  • Nursing Use: Helps set realistic goals for different age groups.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

  • Focus: Human motivation from basic to higher needs

  • Levels: Physiological → Safety → Love/Belonging → Esteem → Self-actualization

  • Nursing Use: Prioritization in care (Airway, Breathing, Circulation = physiological needs first).

NCLEX Tips:

  • If a question asks about care priority, think Maslow’s + ABCs.

  • If it asks about age-appropriate teaching, think Piaget.

  • If it’s about psychosocial care, think Erikson.

  • If it’s about values/ethics, think Kohlberg.

  • Remember Erikson for psychosocial stages questions.

  • Apply Piaget when teaching pediatrics.

  • Use Maslow when prioritizing nursing interventions.

  • Think Kohlberg in ethics-related patient scenarios.

Meljun Perez
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