How Do I Calculate Intake and Output?

Nurses General Nursing

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I'm only in level 1 and I have an exam coming up for my basic concepts/fundamentals of nursing class. My professor gave us a blueprint on how many questions on each topic will be on the exam. She mentioned that there will be 2 questions on intake and output where we will need a pen or pencil. I'm assuming we will be calculating but I'm not sure what she was talking about. We didn't have a lecture on it, but does anyone know what she may be possibly talking about on calculating intake/output? Or questions on that topic? She usually asks us nclex style questions.

1 Votes
Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.

When I was in school it went something like this...

You pt drank a 12 oz cup of juice and 8oz gingerale, ate 4 oz of jello, and had a 2 oz popcicle. What is his intake in mL?

1 Votes
Specializes in Plastics. General Surgery. ITU. Oncology.

You record input. This may be IV, NGT or oral and usually refers to fluids. Normally you chart this hourly so say an IV infusion is set at 125 (1000 ml over 8 hours) so for each hour you record 125.

What the patient pees out is also recorded. So you either have a catheter with a urometer bag or the patient pees into a bottle or bedpan.This is measured and documented.

1 Votes

After undergoing transurethral prostatectomy a client returns to his room with a triple-lumen indwelling catheter for continuous bladder irrigation. The irrigation fluid is normal saline delivered at a rate of 150 ml/hr. After 8 hours the nurse empties the drainage bag, which contains a total of 2520 ml. Of the total, _____ ml is urine output.

This was one of our questions from the Potter and Perry book..

Total:2520ml

How much is urine output?

150x8=1200ml

2520-1200

ml urine output:1320cc

1 Votes

Hi there,

Sometimes they will throw in a little trick, like also give you the amount of pudding the client consumed, to see if you are paying attention and reading the question carefully. Remember to only calculate intake based on the things that melt at room temperature. Pudding doesn't, so if they give that as something consumed, don't count that in your intake total.

2 Votes
Specializes in Emergency, Internal Medicine, Sports Med.

Intake= sum of everything the patient has drank, plus jello, plus any IV solutions they might have had. Basically any fluids that are going IN to the patient.

Output= volume of fluid coming OUT of the patient. This is typically urine only, although in some critical care patients things like contents of a nasogastric tube are included (how much stomach juice has been sucked out + how much urine they've produced). I've only ever seen sweat counted once in my career, and the patient was losing a TON of fluid that way. Typically you don't count sweat.

1 Votes
Specializes in family practice.
4Karrie2 said:
Hi there,

Sometimes they will throw in a little trick, like also give you the amount of pudding the client consumed, to see if you are paying attention and reading the question carefully. Remember to only calculate intake based on the things that melt at room temperature. Pudding doesn't, so if they give that as something consumed, don't count that in your intake total.

I beg to differ, if the intake of pudding is given it is part of intake because like it or not it will be excreted as output.

1 Votes

Output can also be vomit. If a patient vomits, I don't measure it - but I do chart "emesis basin x2" or however many times they vomited.

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According to the 2010 Kaplan NCLEX-PN Strategies book on page 273, the answer to question 130 is to NOT count pudding as it does not melt at room temperature. If this is incorrect information, I need to know as do others, as I am using this book as a guide to passing this test! I checked my textbook and it said eggs in custard can be used as part of a full liquid diet, but nothing specific in regard to counting it as intake. I hope someone here can give good clarification on this, with references.

1 Votes

I'm curious about this too. I've never counted pudding as input, but I do count jello and it doesn't melt at room temperature? Often times when a patient asks for jello I will take them two so they'll have one for later if they want it and don't have to ask. Hours later it will be sitting there (not melted). So - I agree that pudding shouldn't be counted as input, but I'm not sure about the reasoning of "because it doesn't melt at room temperature."

1 Votes

I took and passed my Illinois CNA exam back in August. In CNA class my class was told that the state of Illinois counts jello as part of intake, but if it has fruit in it, it is not counted for I&O. I had 4 I&O questions on my state CNA exam. One question threw in pudding, and a second question threw in Jello with fruit in it. I guess they were checking to make sure we were reading the question correctly.

0 Votes
Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

Jello is considered liquid. Pudding is not.

0 Votes
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