King, Imogene, (1923–2007), a nursing theorist who introduced her theory of goal attainment in her book entitled Toward a Theory for Nursing (1971). King defines nursing as a process of human interactions between nurses and patients, who communicate to set goals and then agree to meet the goals. King’s conceptual framework specifies three interacting systems: personal system, interpersonal system, and social system. She believes that the patient is a personal system within a social system, coexisting through interpersonal processes with other personal systems. The nurse and patient perceive each other and the situation, act and react, interact, and transact. From her major concepts (interaction, perception, communication, transaction, role, stress, growth and development, and time and space), she derives her theory of goal attainment. King describes nursing as a discipline and an applied science, with emphasis on the derivation of nursing knowledge from other disciplines. She suggests that the patient’s and nurse’s perceptions, judgments, and actions lead to reaction, interaction, and transaction, which she calls the process of nursing.
