book recommendation? medical diagnoses into nursing diagnoses

[memory's_blackhole]

Hello,

I'm looking for a book that has a list of many medical diagnoses and under each are a list of common nursing diagnoses. like a care plan book, but more quantity of diagnoses (both medical and nursing) and less focused on the care plans themselves.

so if i have a patient with colon cancer, give me a list of the 10 top nursing diagnoses we're likely to see with that person.

my clinical instructor said she had one in school. we don't seem to have a book like that. we have the care plan book with a lot of examples, but not what we're talking about.

THanks..

[RunBabyRN]

I haven't seen anything like that (doesn't mean it doesn't exist), but I would think that would take away from looking at the patient holistically. A lot of my nursing diagnoses aren't necessarily related to their medical diagnoses. For example, I had a patient who had several medical diagnoses, but he also had horrible depression as a result. He had a lot of regrets in his life, and just a generally sullen, negative outlook. Because of this, he didn't take care of himself, and his own actions directly resulted in his admission (not a suicide attempt, BTW).

Look at the whole patient, rather than relying on a textbook version of what's going on.

[Jenngirl34RN]

Honestly, I would think twice before getting a book like that. It might get you into the bad habit of basing your nursing diagnoses on the medical diagnosis. While you will see common issues and have common diagnoses for patients with the same medical diagnosis, each patient is going to be a little different and your priorities may be different for each patient.

I am also a student, and while I am no fonder of actually doing care plans than anyone else, especially after a long clinical day, they are really good tools for helping us learn to prioritize our patients problems and the interventions we will need to see to. A short-cut book that doesn't take YOUR patient and their unique issues into consideration is probably not going to help you much in the long run.

[mrsboots87]

There is a reason a book like that is hard to find. There probably are some but it would be counterproductive for a SN to use one. Nursing diagnoses are not based on the medical diagnoses. If they were, then a physician would be responsible for them. like the others have pointed out, nurses are supposed to use holism when diagnosing a patient. Yes, some of your diagnoses will be r/t the medical diagnoses, but you will miss many of the other diagnoses based on the patient response to their medical diagnoses and treatment if all you look at is the medical diagnosis. Look at your patient as a whole. Is he depressed, is he eating properly, sleeping properly, how does his treatment make him feel? There are many questions you should be asking yourself about the patient then diagnoses based on that.

[mrsboots87]

Also, if you understand the pathophysiology of the disease as well as the treatment to the disease, then you shouldnt need a book to give you diagnoses because you will be able to make them yourself. If you find yourself stuck with a diagnoses, review the pathophysilogy and the clinical manifestations of the disease and treatment. You will need to be familiar if you expect to pass your tests and NCLEX anyway. Its tough and they take time, but really learn the material and really work hard on the care plans so you can be a better student and better RN in the future.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

A lot of people will seem to tell you that a medical diagnosis can't be a causative factor in a nursing diagnosis. Actually, it is a fallacy that a nursing diagnosis cannot ever be "based on" a medical diagnosis. Many nursing diagnoses have related-to's (causative factors) that are medical diagnoses. For example, just flipping my book open here, on page 476 of the NANDA-I 2012-2014 I find Nausea. There are a number of related factors which are medical diagnoses, e.g., Meniere's, meningitis, labyrinthitis, increased intracranial pressure, intracranial tumor or hemorrhage ... and more.

What you can't do is say, "My patient has X medical diagnosis, so I need three nandas for that."

First, there is no such thing as "a nanda," I don't care what terms you can search on the web. That's ignorance speaking. Stop that right now!

Second, while if I admit somebody with, say, diabetes, I can think right off the top of my head of a number of possible nursing diagnoses I might diagnose in this person.

Think of them as differential diagnoses, to use a medical parallel. I might see things like changes in mobility due to peripheral neuropathy or CHF or amputation or stroke, I might see shortness of breath from CHF, I might see low hematocrit due to renal failure, I might see complete ignorance about self-care management, I might see nausea due to gastroparesis or uremia, I might hear about sexual dysfunction due to arterial disease, I might see ineffective family therapeutic regimen management, ... all of these, and many more, I might keep in the back of my mind while I assess THIS patient in front of me. I also have to think about nursing diagnoses that have nothing to do with the medical diagnosis at all, but are critical for me to address in my nursing plan of care. But I cannot say, "This patient has diabetes, so therefore he has ineffective sexuality pattern, impaired mobility, activity intolerance, ineffective tissue perfusion, and knowledge deficit." Maybe he has some, all, more, or none of these. I have to do my due diligence to assess him before I can make a diagnosis, just as a physician has to do due diligence to make a medical diagnosis.