Goals are usually determined from the defining characteristics (symptoms) the patient is exhibiting. In this case your patient has told you that she wants to know more about her condition, what she should be eating and what medications she will have to take. Those will become your goals, like this:
Short term:
- At the end of one week (or whatever time deadline you want to put on this) the patient will be able to list the medications she is on, what each of them is for and how each is helping her ulcerative colitis.
- At the end of one week (or whatever time deadline you want to put on this) the patient will be able to list at least five foods that she must avoid as well as five foods she will be able to eat on her diet.
- By discharge the patient will have read the printed information about ulcerative colitis given to her and discuss the signs and symptoms of an exacerbation and what she should do.
Long term:
- By XXX the patient will have attended a meeting of a community support group for people with ulcerative colitis and met and talked with other patients there with the same condition.
The important thing that you need to take note of here is that you must have nursing interventions that address these goals, and that your goals reflect back on what your patient's problems are. So, if you were to use any of these particular goals (and I'm not suggesting that you do, just listing them as examples for you), you would have interventions to match with them, such as:
- Instruct patient on the reason for each medication she is receiving.
- Instruct patient on the signs and symptoms to be alert for each medication she is taking.
- Evaluate patient's comprehension of instruction given by having her tell the purpose for each medication as she is taking it.
- Discuss the community ulcerative colitis support group with the patient and why this would be a good resource for her to become involved in.
- Provide the patient with printed material on ulcerative colitis from the patient learning resources library.
Do you see how it all links together?
Feb 28, '07Hi Angel,
Feb 28, '07For short term outcomes you could have that the pt will verbalize "blah blah" by the end of the shift. Whether it be signs and symptoms to report, how to take meds properly, whatever it is she needs help with.
