Help!!! with a diagnosis

Nursing Students Student Assist

Published

Specializes in Peds.

I need a diagnosis for a cholecystectomy post-op patient. The dx has to be related to the pt's nutritional intake. The pt has high cholesterol and a 24 hr intake as follows: bacon & eggs with coffee, macaroni and cheese with soda, fried steak with rice and beans and a soda and water between meals. The patient is not overweight. I want to say imbalanced nutrition but i can't come up with the r/t part. Please help if you can!!

:uhoh3::uhoh21::uhoh3:

It isn't imbalanced, it's wrong. He can't eat all of that fatty stuff without a gall bladder.

Knowledge deficit r/t appropriate diet for inability to digest fats a/e/b meal choices

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Specializes in LTC, Nursing Management, WCC.

I would get dinged for using knowledge deficit, unless the patient specifically verbalizes that they have a problem. But if your patient isn't underweight or overweight, than I don't think you can say, imbalanced nutrition.

Specializes in LTC, Nursing Management, WCC.

Well I have been thinking about this... :)

If a pt had that surgery and continues to eat like that... how about...

Ineffective Health Maintenance r/t patient's inability to manage healthy diet AEB poor food choices

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

The patient is eating a high fat diet (bacon, cheese, steak). With a cholecyctectomy he's going to end up with some degree of steatorrhea if he hasn't had it already because of all the fat in this food. That would be another symptoms to use. The appropriate diagnosis would be Imbalanced Nutrition: More than body requirements R/T excessive intake of fat in relation to RDA need/metabolic need AEB [you need to do a more specific assessment of his fat intake for your symptom, or defining characteristic]. You should be able to find a tool to determine what the fat grams of all that food is. That will give you more empirical data to support the nursing diagnosis. :up:

Specializes in Peds.

Thanks so much for everyone's help......it's a bit more clear now...actually more than a bit!!

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