Although nursing leaders call for theory utilization in research, use remains low within the discipline. The purpose of this article is to explore the application of interdisciplinary integration of models and theories to nursing research. An example of theory integration for the purposes of guiding a study relevant to school nursing is described. A conceptual-theoretical-empirical structure based on the Neuman's systems model, a nursing theory, integrated with the social communication model of pain, a psychology model, was developed to guide the study to examine pain assessment for schoolchildren with intellectual and developmental disabilities.