Agency is “the power to engage in action to achieve specific goals” (Orem, 2001, p. 514).
Self-care agency refers to the power or ability to engage in actions to meet the self-care requisites
(universal, developmental, and health deviation). In other words, the action performed in caring
for self. This power or these abilities develop over time and may vary in degree of adequacy from
one time to another. What affects the degree of adequacy is the basic conditioning factors such as
age and developmental state.