The Corbin and Strauss Chronic Illness Trajectory model: an update

As the nature of the American health care system, chronic illness, and nursing change, theoretical models used to guide nursing management of chronic conditions must be updated to keep abreast of these changes, while still retaining their core concepts. This article offers a revised version of the Corbin and Strauss Chronic Illness Trajectory Framework. The most notable changes include a greater emphasis on health promotion and illness prevention, streamlined language to make it more user friendly, and increased focus on the global influences on health care. The nurse also takes a more prominent position in management of such conditions, because only nurses, among health care workers, have the wide based education, training, focus on health promotion, technological expertise, and holistic approach to health care necessary to address the wide range issues and problems of chronic management, which will continue to grow as we move into the 21st Century.