[Kathyz]

Hi, everyone! I'm a first semester nursing student and will be starting clinicals next week. What is a great Nursing Diagnosis/Care Plan book that you would suggest? I really want to invest in something good that will get me through with as much ease as possible.

Also, any highly recommended drug books?

Thanks

[Daytonite]

Is there a particular one that your nursing program recommends?

I have several that I use to help with care planning and answering student question about care plans on the forums. Two that are very nice are:

Nursing Diagnosis Handbook: A Guide to Planning Care, 7th Edition, by Betty J. Ackley and Gail B. Ladwig.

Nursing Care Plans: Nursing Diagnosis and Intervention, 6th edition, by Meg Gulanick and Judith L. Myers.

I also have a copy of Nursing Diagnoses: Definitions & Classification 2005-2006 from NANDA International. All the information in it is in both of the books listed above. It is just short and sweet with all the nursing diagnoses listed, their definitions, defining characteristics and related factors. The new edition for 2007 is now out. The advantage of the two books above is that they list outcomes (goals) and nursing interventions with each of the nursing diagnoses.
There are also care plan books that have care plans for medical diseases. The problems I find with these books is that they only cover major diseases. They are not much help when you get a patient with a condition that is not covered in these books. One of these types of care plan books that I have is Nursing Care Plans: Guidelines for Individualizing Client Care Across the Life Span, 7th edition, by Marilynn E. Doenges, Mary Frances Moorhouse, and Alice C. Murr. You can see the table of contents and prices of all of these books on a website like Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Another very active care plan book writer for many years has been Lynda Juell Carpenito. Recently, she has also published both care plan books with care plans by medical disease and nursing diagnosis books.
Ms. Carpenito has been very active in NANDA for many years and is also known for writing about clinical pathways of care. You will find assessment forms in both her and Ms. Doenges' books. The Ackley/Ladwig and Gulanick/Myers books have companion websites that are care plan constructors. If you have seen any of my posts to care plan questions you will find I often post links to the nursing diagnosis information on those websites. You can find the links to them on one of these threads (I can never remember which one they are posted on): http://allnurses.com/forums/f205/desperately-need-help-careplans-170689.html or http://allnurses.com/forums/f50/careplans-help-please-r-t-aeb-121128-7.html

[Achoo!]

I use Ackley and Ladwig also.