nursing dx for dying pt?

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Anyone know a good nursing dx. for end of life care?

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Specializes in NICU.

It's been ages since I had to do a care plan (yes, I promise some of you will get jobs where you never, ever have to use the words "as evidenced by" again), but off the top of my head I'd go with anxiety.

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It sort of depends on your patient but some that I included with past patients included fear, ineffective coping, readiness for enhanced coping, and death anxiety.

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If applicable, airway, breathing, circualtion and pain.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

your question indicates that you do not understand the nursing process or the sequence of steps you need to go through in writing a care plan. nursing diagnoses are based upon symptoms the patient has that you discover by assessing the patient. assessment is the first of 5 steps in the nursing process and the foundation of your care plan since the remainder of the care plan is based upon everything you discovered in your assessment.

(from page 4 of
nursing diagnosis handbook: a guide to planning care
, 7th edition, by betty j. ackley and gail b. ladwig)

"when the assessment is complete, identify common patterns/symptoms of response to actual or potential health problems and select an appropriate nursing diagnosis label using critical thinking skills.

  1. highlight or underline the relevant symptoms.

  2. make a short list of the symptoms.

  3. cluster similar symptoms.

  4. analyze/interpret the symptoms.

  5. select a nursing diagnosis label that fits with the appropriate related factors and defining characteristics.

the process of identifying significant symptoms, clustering or grouping them into logical patterns, and then choosing an appropriate nursing diagnosis involves diagnostic reasoning (critical thinking) skills that must be learned in the process of becoming a nurse."

you cannot identify any nursing problems (nursing diagnoses) until you have done the above. list your patient's symptoms and then we can talk about possible nursing diagnoses for this patient.

if this is a case study of a patient that does not exist, you need to read about end-of-life care, what it is, what kinds of problems these patients encounter and what nursing needs these patients typically have. from that information you can develop a rough assessment of a typical patient and determine appropriate nursing diagnoses from that information.

you can also find information on care plan writing and determining nursing diagnoses on this two sticky threads:

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Specializes in Medical-Oncology.

I just wrote a case study on a pt dying of brain cancer. He was in-patient hospice. I had about 20 applicable nursing diagnoses. The two I used for my care plans were: Ineffective airway clearance and Impaired skin integrity. It all depends on your patient. The difference between care plans for dying pts and "curable" pts are the objectives. For example, I did not expect wound healing, but I did expect to prevent future pressure ulcers. And I did not expect my pt to TCDB to clear airway, but I did hope to prevent further congestion with secretions by applying scopo patch, elevating HOB, etc.

GOOD LUCK!

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