[timetospreadmywings]

What's the difference b/t an indepent and dependent intervention? My instructor this semester just introduced us to this and I'm a beginning senior student. I'm surprised we were not taught this early on. By the way, thanks for the advice.

[Daytonite]

Originally Posted by timetospreadmywings

What's the difference b/t an independent and dependent intervention? My instructor this semester just introduced us to this and I'm a beginning senior student. I'm surprised we were not taught this early on. By the way, thanks for the advice.

Independent nursing interventions are those actions that a nurse can take autonomously, on his/her own, without permission or at the direction of a physician. Examples of independent interventions are things such as monitoring the patient for complications or a change in their status, correctly positioning a patient who is bedridden in the bed to avoid contractures, weighing a patient daily, or showing and encouraging a post-op patient how to deep breath and cough. You do not need doctor's orders to order another person on the healthcare team or to do these actions or to do them yourself.

Dependent, or collaborative, interventions are those that utilize both physician- and nursing- prescribed interventions. Think of them as requiring the order of a doctor. Examples of dependent interventions are things like doctors orders for medications, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, laboratory and diagnostic tests. Something else about collaborative interventions that you should know is that there is no outcome criteria when collaborative interventions are being performed. The reason is because there is no way to accurately measure whether it was the nursing interventions or the medical interventions that were performed which contributed to the ultimate response of the patient. Dependent interventions are often kept separated (and many times nursing instructors don't even want them listed) on care plans.

[WindyHill]

Have I said how much I love that Care Plan website!!! Woo Hoo! Yipee!

[cota2k]

After I graduated from an ADN program, and passed the NCLEX, I sold all my books. Now, a year later, I find myself at a four year college entering their BSN program. This program has a challenge exam to give me credit for my previous nursing courses. The exam is all patho, care plans and teaching. Did I mention "I SOLD ALL MY BOOKS"! So, I'm sure you have all guessed it, I'll be frequenting this site for patho, care plan and teaching plan support. I checked out a couple care plan web-sites listed above, they look great! Any good ones for patho?

[Daytonite]

Hi, cota2k!

These are a few links I have for pathophys. Not sure they're going to be all that good for you. I also have a copy of Pathophysiology: The Biologic Basis for Disease in Adults and Children by Kathryn L. McCance and Sue E. Heuther here at home that I use for reference:

http://kcsun3.tripod.com/id200.htm - pathophysiology help for nurses

http://w3.tvi.edu/~kflies/patho-links.htm - pathophysiology links

http://www.loyno.edu/~bwilson/ - pathology website of links for nursing students at Loyola University New Orleans.

http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~ref/subject_links.htm#path - click on the pathophysiology links

One site where you can get a quick list of pathophysiology for most diseases is: Family Practice Notebook http://www.fpnotebook.com/index.htm

You should also bookmark this site from e-Medicine. This is the medical specialties page. Go into a medical specialty to bring up a listing of articles on subjects within that area. You'll generally be able to find up to date information on diseases that includes their pathophysiology and treatment: http://www.emedicine.com/specialties.htm - listing of specialties

I'm really holding back from giving you a lecture about selling all your books. What were you thinking? I answer a lot of care plan questions on the forums. I recommend Nursing Diagnosis Handbook: A Guide to Planning Care, 7th Edition, by Betty J. Ackley and Gail B. Ladwig.

As far as patient teaching, there are tons of websites that have patient based information on their sites. You should become familiar with Medline Plus at http://www.medlineplus.gov/ . Beside linking you into all kinds of informative articles, they have interactive videos for a whole bunch of surgeries and procedures on their site. If you are even in doubt as to how to proceed with a teaching project, go there and look at how they are presenting material as an example.

Make sure you check out the threads that have "Sticky" in front of their names. There is usually a lot of information including links to helpful websites within the posts on those threads.

See you on the forums! Welcome to allnurses!

[hakeemellis]

thanks

[medicwife]

God bless you all for these sites...I am just starting care plans and can use all the help I can get...ohhhh...thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!

[yadis572002]

thank you so much for sharing those web sites. they seem pretty helpful!!!

[blackberry4eva]

Hello all! This is my first time posting. I have just completed my first semester of clinical and found care plans very hard to do .It seemed to take hours of my time and I only had 1 to complete. Next semester I'm told, will contain 2-3 care plans. Any suggsestions on how to better organize my time and speed up the progress? Also are there any sites that have free practice tests r/t clinical?

[Daytonite]

Hi, blackberry4eva. . .I hear the panic in your post. Let me put this care planning activity into some perspective for you. It is a nursing skill like any other nursing skill you are learning in your nursing program. The difference is that instead of being a more physical skill, care planning is a thinking, cognitive skill. In writing a care plan you are being asked to put an activity--your thinking--onto paper. Our brains process information extremely quickly. Our pens, pencils and computer keyboards are a lot slower. Also, as a new learner, this is a very new idea to you. You didn't learn how to ride a bicycle without training wheels after the first session, did you? And, it's not going to be the same with writing care plans either. Care planning is a complex activity that involves many processes that you are putting together. You have to have knowledge of the patient's medical diseases, the likely treatments that the doctor is going to be ordering for them, determining what other problems the patient has, knowledge of nursing fundamentals, knowledge of medications, knowledge of the nursing process and the steps involved, knowledge of the NANDA diagnoses and how to prioritize. I may have left a couple of things out, but I think I've included the most important aspects you'll need to know. Yes, the first care plans take a lot of time to write. Remember, too, that you are learning many lessons from writing these care plans.

You will find more help with care plan writing on this thread, too:

• http://allnurses.com/forums/f205/desperately-need-help-careplans-170689.html - Desperately need help with careplans (in Nursing Student Assistance Forum)

You will find help with assessment on this thread:

• http://allnurses.com/forums/f205/health-assessment-resources-techniques-forms-145091.html - Health Assessment Resources, Techniques, and Forms (in Nursing Student Assistance Forum)

I answer a lot of care plan questions. If you want to see them, do a search using the words "nanda" (use lower case letters), "diagnosis", "interventions", or "careplan". Those are the fastest ways to pull up lists of care plan threads. I've found that most student questions that are posted are usually concerning determining nursing diagnoses because that is where students get stuck in the process.

To prepare yourself, I would get a good care plan or nursing diagnosis book and start reading about the nursing process. What I find is that most beginners panic and forget that choosing a nursing diagnosis is based on their abnormal assessment items. Part of the problem is that as new nurses it's still hard for students to recognize what is "not normal" in patients. You see it, but it registers so quickly in your brain that you often fail to write it down as a piece of assessment data. This, however, is something that improves with experience and knowledge of diseases.

Unless I am ill or busy with something else in my life, I check the nursing student forums once or twice a day for questions about care planning and usually do a search of all the forums for care plan questions as well. I will always answer a PM (private message). I just realized that the forum no longer prints out other information about us under our screen names. I have been an RN for 30 years and did a lot of care plan writing during that time, in case you were wondering what my qualifications were!

Welcome to allnurses!