PTSD nclex question

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Question from our final that I don't agree with the answer. I won't post the answer yet to prevent bias. Please tell me what you believe the answer is and possibly a rationale.

Your patient is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). You know his condition is improving when he states that he:

A.) Acknowledges his fault for the event that occurred.

B.) has been attending to work and spending time with coworkers.

Thank you so much!

Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

I agree that this is a poorly written test item and does not accurately assess a student's learning. Since it is not a fair assessment, it needs to be thrown out.

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I think that with this question something is missing. For a short term outcome the client will be able to verbalize feelings of guilt, anger, self-blame, hopelessness associated with the trauma. A client with ptsd will have survivor's guilt. So they need to verbalize these feeling and know that they are not to blame for what happened.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

I see this is a 3-yr-old question, but that is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard! Acknowledging fault? What if it wasn't their fault--e.g. combat related, or pt was raped or witnessed a murder? Answer B suggests a return to normalcy. I wonder what the instructor's rationale was?

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