Affect

CRNI-ICU20 · Mar 5, 2007

well.....your nursing instructor has an interesting 'affect'....doesn't she???

How about ANGERy??

SLOW???

DULL?

MANIC??

DEPRESSED?

digressed?

I don't know...seems like she hollered alot for no good reason....isn't the idea about 'learning' vs. 'hitting someone over the head with a violin to prove music is beautiful/"

where do these crones come from?

lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN · Mar 5, 2007

Many of the words you suggested, we did also. "That is NOT what affect is" was her oh-so-kind reply. And she has yet to say what it IS. She spent 20 minutes talking about how for ethnicity, we couldn't put "white" or "black" because those are races, not ethnicities. She talked about all kinds of Italian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, and then told us to write "white" or "black." Queen of inconsistency. She told another student who said her patient was withdrawn that if the patient were actually withdrawn, how did he talk? I have half a mind to just say the guy had a "flat" affect. At least I know flat works.

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2007

It's hard to explain affect in the abstract, but I'm willing to try to help you out.

My psych text defines affect as: behaviors such as hand and body movements, facial expression, and pitch of voice that can be observed then a person is expressing and experiencing feelings and emotions. It also says that words used to describe affect can include broad, restricted, blunted, flat, and inappropriate.

If someone has flat affect, they show no emotion. When I worked with autistic patients, they used no hand gestures, no expressions, no nothing. Autistics are known for flat affect. Nothing excites them, makes them smile, animates them. People with flat affect have little to no real voice inflection and inject no real expression into their speech. They'll tell you their dog died, their sister had a baby, they have an ingrown toenail, and they saw a huge car wreck with seventeen bodies lying all over the road with ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT OF EXPRESSION. They don't express emotion or feeling in their speech.

Animated is the complete opposite.

I hope that begins to help, and that I didn't confuse you.

lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN · Mar 7, 2007

I appreciate your input. It makes perfect sense to me. My instructor seems to think that it's more important to point out in whatever way she can that the hospital is terrible, the nurses are stupid, our other instructors are morons, and that where she comes from, things are much different. I'm fully anticipating having to do the care plan over.

EricJRN, MSN, RN · Mar 7, 2007

Here's another one: labile affect, which indicates dramatic mood swings.

nurse4theplanet, RN · Mar 7, 2007

Sounds like your instructors affect is : crazy

lol

Labile, flat, animated...only descriptions I can think of at the moment.

As far as a definition of affect...affect is the pt's physical presentation (an objective finding) of emotion (a subjective experience), or lack there of. When assessing affect, you are are basically assessing if the physical presentation of their emotion matches what they subjectively express. For example, a pt who is withdrawn and crying should not tell you that they are happy. Their affect would suggest otherwise...does that make sense.

I'd say incongruent would be a great explanation of that. Withdrawn.