Differences in diagnosis

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Can someone explain the differences between an "actual" diagnosis, a "wellness" diagnosis, and a "risk for" diagnosis.

I'm thinking actual is for a pre-existing problem like depression.

Wellness is for something that can be changed leading to better health, such as increase hours of sleep.

Risk for would be consequences if no changes leading to suicide or obesity.

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Depression is a medical diagnosis.

An actual nursing diagnosis is one that is actually present. Ex. impaired skin integrity r/t ....

A wellness nursing diagnosis also actually exists but is focused on health seeking behaviors. Ex. readiness for enhanced sleep. So you've noticed behavior that tells you the patient is ready to address certain problems, now you can provide patient education and help them meet goals.

An at risk nursing diagnosis is based off of factors that put them at risk. Ex. risk for infection. They may not have an infection right now, but there are factors that put them at risk so you as the nurse have identified them and will now set goals to prevent infection from happening.

Hope that helps.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Welcome to AN! The largest online nursing community!

We are happy to help but we need to know what you think first. What has your research revealed?

NightNurse has been good to you...now what do you think?

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Oops jumped the gun!

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

.....:roflmao:

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Thank you for pointing out the medical diagnosis. I would've really messed that one up.

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So any medical diagnosis is off limits. The pt was observed sucking their thumb, so that could be impaired skin integrity r/t...

Readiness for enhanced sleep could be the suggestion to cut back on hours, sleep with earplugs, use room darkening curtains. Or should the suggestions be physically related: stop caffeine intake 6-8 hours before bedtime, no stimulation or exercise prior to sleep.

I get the at risk now.

Thanks for all the help.

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As a nurse we don't make medical diagnoses but we can use them to identify nursing diagnoses.

I personally wouldn't say sucking their thumb relates to impaired skin integrity, but I guess that could be argued.

Readiness for enhanced sleep could be observed by patient making changes and from subjective information such as the patient simply stating they want to sleep better.

So with that in mind would your suggestions be your goals perhaps? How would you word a short term goal and a long term goal and how would you evaluate if they were met and if changes should be made?

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
So any medical diagnosis is off limits. The pt was observed sucking their thumb, so that could be impaired skin integrity r/t...

Readiness for enhanced sleep could be the suggestion to cut back on hours, sleep with earplugs, use room darkening curtains. Or should the suggestions be physically related: stop caffeine intake 6-8 hours before bedtime, no stimulation or exercise prior to sleep.

I get the at risk now.

Thanks for all the help.

Let the patient/patient assessment drive your diagnosis. Do not try to fit the patient to the diagnosis you found first. You need to know the pathophysiology of your disease process. You need to assess your patient, collect data then find a diagnosis. Let the patient data drive that diagnosis.

The medical diagnosis is the disease itself. It is what the patient has not necessarily what the patient needs. the nursing diagnosis is what are you going to do about it, what are you going to look for, and what do you need to do/look for first. From what you posted I do not have the information necessary to make a nursing diagnosis.

Care plans when you are in school are teaching you what you need to do to actually look for, what you need to do to intervene and improve for the patient to be well and return to their previous level of life or to make them the best you you can be. It is trying to teach you how to think like a nurse.

Think of the care plan as a recipe to caring for your patient. your plan of how you are going to care for them. how you are going to care for them. what you want to happen as a result of your caring for them. What would you like to see for them in the future, even if that goal is that you don't want them to become worse, maintain the same, or even to have a peaceful pain free death.

Every single nursing diagnosis has its own set of symptoms, or defining characteristics. they are listed in the NANDA taxonomy and in many of the current nursing care plan books that are currently on the market that include nursing diagnosis information. You need to have access to these books when you are working on care plans. You need to use the nursing diagnoses that NANDA has defined and given related factors and defining characteristics for. These books have what you need to get this information to help you in writing care plans so you diagnose your patients correctly.

Don't focus your efforts on the nursing diagnoses when you should be focusing on the assessment and the patients abnormal data that you collected. These will become their symptoms, or what NANDA calls defining characteristics.

From a very wise AN contributor Daytonite.......make sure you follow these steps first and in order and let the patient drive your diagnosis not try to fit the patient to the diagnosis you found first.

Here are the steps of the nursing process and what you should be doing in each step when you are doing a written care plan: ADPIE

  1. Assessment(collect data from medical record, do a physical assessment of the patient, assess ADL'S, look up information about your patient's medical diseases/conditions to learn about the signs and symptoms and pathophysiology)
  2. Determination of the patient's problem(s)/nursing diagnosis (make a list of the abnormal assessment data, match your abnormal assessment data to likely nursing diagnoses, decide on the nursing diagnoses to use)
  3. Planning (write measurable goals/outcomes and nursing interventions)
  4. Implementation (initiate the care plan)
  5. Evaluation (determine if goals/outcomes have been met)

Care plan reality: The foundation of any care plan is the signs, symptoms or responses that patient is having to what is happening to them. What is happening to them could be the medical disease, a physical condition, a failure to perform ADLS (activities of daily living), or a failure to be able to interact appropriately or successfully within their environment. Therefore, one of your primary goals as a problem solver is to collect as much data as you can get your hands on. The more the better. You have to be the detective and always be on the alert and lookout for clues, at all times, and that is Step #1 of the nursing process.

Assessment is an important skill. It will take you a long time to become proficient in assessing patients. Assessment not only includes doing the traditional head-to-toe exam, but also listening to what patients have to say and questioning them. History can reveal import clues. It takes time and experience to know what questions to ask to elicit good answers (interview skills). Part of this assessment process is knowing the pathophysiology of the medical disease or condition that the patient has. But, there will be times that this won't be known. Just keep in mind that you have to be like a nurse detective always snooping around and looking for those clues.

A nursing diagnosis standing by itself means nothing.

The meat of this care plan of yours will lie in the abnormal data (symptoms) that you collected during your assessment of this patient......in order for you to pick any nursing diagnoses for a patient you need to know what the patient's symptoms are. Although your patient isn't real you do have information available.

What I would suggest you do is to work the nursing process from step #1. Take a look at the information you collected on the patient during your physical assessment and review of their medical record. Start making a list of abnormal data which will now become a list of their symptoms. Don't forget to include an assessment of their ability to perform ADLS (because that's what we nurses shine at).

The ADLS are bathing, dressing, transferring from bed or chair, walking, eating, toilet use, and grooming. and, one more thing you should do is to look up information about symptoms that stand out to you. What is the physiology and what are the signs and symptoms (manifestations) you are likely to see in the patient. did you miss any of the signs and symptoms in the patient? if so, now is the time to add them to your list.

This is all part of preparing to move onto step #2 of the process which is determining your patient's problem and choosing nursing diagnoses. but, you have to have those signs, symptoms and patient responses to back it all up.

Care plan reality: What you are calling a nursing diagnosis is actually a shorthand label for the patient problem.. The patient problem is more accurately described in the definition of the nursing diagnosis.

doc.gif Critical Thinking Flow Sheet for Nursing Students(1).doc (80.0 KB, 0

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NANDA-I does not recognize those categories. I believe they were posited at some point by somebody else writing a "care planning handbook." There are "risk for..." diagnoses (which, BTW, may be renamed with different terminology in the next edition 2015-2017) but they are not separately categorized or separated out. There are no such things as "wellness" diagnoses in NANDA-I, and finally: ALL approved NANDA-I nursing diagnoses are "real" and "actual." The people who think that they aren't are completely misguided and wrongheaded, and you can look it up.

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