Signs and symptoms are important aspects of health and illness that disrupt physical, mental, and social functioning. Whether the goal is to eliminate the symptom or to minimize the distress of the symptom experience, the Symptom Management Theory (SMT) provides a useful framework for organizing the relevant concepts for research and practice. This middle range theory serves to guide symptom assessment and treatment in nursing practice and to suggest questions and hypotheses for nursing research. The three essential concepts of the SMT are symptom experience, symptom management strategies, and outcomes, with a change in the status of the symptom being the key outcome of interest. Symptom experience is a simultaneous perception, evaluation, and response to a change in one’s usual feeling. Symptom management strategies are efforts to avert, delay, or minimize the symptom experience. Symptom outcomes are clear and measurable outcomes to assess before and after implementing an intervention strategy.