Chapter 04: Theoretical Foundations of Nursing Practice Chapter 04: Theoretical Foundations of Nursing Practice Potter et al.: Fundamentals of Nursing, 9th Edition MULTIPLE CHOICE 1. The nursing instructor is teaching a class on nursing theory. One of the students asks, ―Why do we need to know this stuff? It doesn’t really affect patients.‖ What is the instructor’s bestresponse? a. ―You are correct, but we have to learn it anyway.‖ b. ―This keeps the focus of nursing narrow.‖ c. ―Theories help explain why nurses do what they do.‖ d. ―Exposure to theories will help you later in graduate school.‖ SELECTED ANSWER: C Theories offer well-grounded rationales for how and why nurses perform specific interventions and for predicting and/or prescribing nursing care measures. Although nursing theory will help the nurse in graduate school, it is also an important basis for the nurse’s approach to daily patient care, and it expands scientific knowledge of the profession.