Joan Backscheider Collection

Biography

Joan Backscheider was born in 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received a BSN from the College of Mount St. Joseph on-the-Ohio in 1956. She earned both her MSN in psychiatric/mental health nursing and her PhD in sociology from The Catholic University of America in 1959 and 1965. Backscheider taught at The Catholic University of America for two years and at Yale University for one year. She was active in the development of the Connecticut Mental Health Center. She was a member of the Nursing Model Committee of the Nursing Faculty of The Catholic University of America and the Nursing Development Conference Group. She served as assistant director of nursing services at the Johns Hopkins Hospital as well as being a staff member at the Center for Experimentation and Development in Nursing at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1969 to 1972. Backscheider died in 1972.

Scope and Content

The Joan Backscheider Collection consist of correspondence, research, records from her academic and clinical career in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, and her work with Dorothea Orem’s Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory. Her teaching and administrative records from the Catholic University of America and Yale University are particularly strong, and reveal Backscheider’s interest in reforming nursing education and practice. Her case studies and statistical research conducted at the Connecticut Mental Health Center are a highlight of her work in psychiatric nursing.

Catalog Record

Additional Links

Sarah E. Allison

Judy Crews-Hanks Collection

Dorothea Orem Collection

Constance Cole Waxter Collection

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