Any ideas for patient teaching for a patient with a diagnosis of 'Abdominal Pain'?

[Samian Q]

So for my adult health nursing class, I have to write up a Client Teaching Journal.

Here's the formal instructions:

"Client Teaching Journal: The evening before clinical, identify a client/family with a learning need in the clinical setting. Use the steps of the nursing process to discuss client/family teaching done on a clinical day. (Include assessing/identifying client needs, setting client goals, implementing and the evaluating these learning goals.) Address the Health Belief Model. This is a prospective assignment, rather than retrospective. You should be familiar with the model and use it as a guide for planning your teaching. This is not a spontaneous effort.http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Health%20Communication/Health_Belief_Model.doc/"

Sounds a bit complex, eh?

So my patient that I'm caring for tomorrow was admitted for 'abdominal pain'. That's right - it wasn't ulcerative colitis or anything like that. Just 'abdominal pain'.

I'm not sure what sort of patient teaching I could really do. I need to have some sort of visual, too. Any ideas or sources to help out?

[hodgieRN]

Writing about abdominal pain is actually good! A nursing diagnosis often comes from the symptoms and the medical diagnosis. Colitis would cause symptoms or impairments that you would treat from a nursing perspective. If someone where to be discharge home with abdominal pain, what would tell them to help manage their everyday life? Wouldn't pain itself cause different issues? What could they do to cope with it? If prescriptions didn't exist, what would you tell the pt to do to make things more tolerable? If you where at home in bed with massive abd pain, would you be eating or meeting you nutritional requirement? What would you tell the pt to watch out for or report?