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The theoretical approach has some limitations in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the health problem. The reliance on one single middle range theory constrains the perspective on the nature and determinants of the problem to those identified in the theory. Therefore, additional factors (in particular contextual or environmental) that may contribute to the problem could be missed; this limits the capacity to account for all possible determinants pertinent to complex problems experienced by particular client populations in particular contexts. For many health‐related problems there is a limited, if any, number of relevant middle range theories that provide an adequate understanding of the problem and all its determinants. Further, of the available middle range theories, a few have been subjected to extensive empirical test across the range of client populations and contexts, and for those tested (e.g. transtheoretical model), the results are often mixed.

Middle range theories may have limited utility if they are not supported empirically. The theoretical approach can be complemented with the empirical approach to gain a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the health problem as actually experienced in the target client population and context.