Assessment

Tweety, BSN, RN · May 28, 2006

In our class, (not in the UK) "health assessment" can mean two things. It can mean a personal health history head to toe as given by the patient (patient states no headaches, no blurred vision,blah blah blah), or it can actually be the head to toe objective assessment that the nurses does (lungs clear bilaterally, no dyspnea). Either one can include the needs because one is subjective and one is objective.

I'm no help. Good luck.

Best to go to the insturctors for advice. Good luck.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · May 29, 2006

based on the information you've provided it sounds that what you are to do is an objective (what you observe) and subjective (what the patient tells you) evaluation of the patient as you work through the list of maslow's heirarchy of needs. do you have a list of these needs?

the first and most important ones are the physiological needs. they include the need for water and sleep and the need to breathe, eat, eliminate body wastes and regulate body temperature. so, for example, you would question the patient about his diet and those things that you can think of related to eating. what kinds of foods does he normally eat? is he following any special dietary restrictions? does he have any food allergies? does he become nauseated or have heartburn? if you have the opportunity to observe the patient eating you would note things like if he has any difficulty swallowing and how much of a meal was actually consumed. do you see that some of these are subjective and actually historical information that the patient will supply to you, while some will be things that you saw with your own eyes. if, as an example, you see the patient vomit you would be able to record objective data like color, consistency, and amount of the emesis as part of your assessment.

you continue to work your way through these physiological needs before proceeding to the next level which is safety needs. after safety needs you assess love and belonging needs. then esteem needs. and, finally being needs. this is just a different way of organizing the information than you might be accustomed to seeing. actually, when you are done you should have pretty much accomplished a head to toe assessment and then some, just not necessarily in the head to toe order. since you are to base your assessment on maslow's it would be well for you to stick to the exact way maslow's needs are listed from the ones with the most priority to those with the least importance and to keep your information presented consistently such that you always list the subjective information first and then the objective information second as you move through each of maslows needs.

do you need more information on what you should be looking for or asking in these different areas? don't know if these three links will help you, but i will post them just the same for you to explore.

http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3270922142412&lang=en-us&mkt=en-us&form=cvre - maslow's hierarchy of needs

https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/health-assessment-resources-techniques-forms-145091.html - here is a previous thread on health assessment that you might find helpful.

http://www.csufresno.edu/nursingstudents/fsnc/firstsemester.htm - this is a patient assessment guideline, more of a ros (review of systems--historical subjective information) type of form. at the top of the page are links to forms that include a general patient survey and a data assessment sheet based on gordon's 11 functional patterns.

BeccaznRN, RN · May 30, 2006

I would definitely clarify with the instructor his/her expectations on the assignment. Our assessment instructor had us do a similar assignment on a patient using a head-to-toe format, including teaching. She gave us a copy of a student's completed assignment from her previous semester as a guide, which was extremely helpful.