As with any case study, you focus on how the patient's condition has deviated from a normal condition. An ectopic pregnancy is a surgical emergency. In this case, how does a ectopic pregnancy differ from a normal pregnancy. Go through your OB textbook and list the differences. It will mostly center on the fertilized egg implanting in a wrong spot. What are some of those spots likely to be? Once implanted, the fertilized egg begins to divide and grow larger. An enlarging growth begins to push upon the structures surrounding it. What are the results of that? Pressure, pain, pushing against delicate blood vessels that might rupture and lead to some bleeding?
Are you understanding how I am trying to progress through what is happening to this poor unfortunate fertilized egg that has gone astray? Every action that occurs results in a sign or symptom. This is the pathophysiology that underlies the problem at hand.
For the nursing care plan and nursing intervention part of the case study, you will take each of the signs and symptoms and list interventions and goals for each of them. When you are done, you will have a case study.
It is unlikely that you will find a case study on this that has already been done, but you can try. I have links to examples of case studies that student nurses have done, but they are not on OB patients. They will give you an idea of how to set up a case study. I also have links to an OB website where you can get OB information. For information on how to write a care plan, see these two threads on allnurses:
- http://allnurses.com/forums/f205/desperately-need-help-careplans-170689.html - Desperately need help with careplans (in Nursing Student Assistance Forum)
- http://allnurses.com/forums/f50/careplans-help-please-r-t-aeb-121128-7.html - CAREPLANS HELP PLEASE! (with the R\T and AEB) (in General Nursing Student Discussion Forum)
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