Help! At risk of failure!!

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I am in school in the LPN program at WDT. We are 4 weeks into it and I'm at risk for failure. I totally do not understand this assignment. This is all the information I was given...

I. Elderly gentleman who speaks only Lakota is scheduled for diagnostic procedures for suspected colon cancer. You are his nurse - getting him ready for these exams. What nursing diagnosis (minimum of two) would be appropiate for this patient?

II. Two nursing diagnosis

III. Two goals for each diagnosis

IV. Two interventions for each goal

V. How you will evaluate the ooutcome

Someone please please help me...I'm hoping after this first one, they will come to me like nothing else.

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Specializes in Medical/Legal.

My suggestion is to buy a Nursing Diagnosis book or cards. It will give you all the information you need to complete your assignment. Good luck!

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Nursing diagnoses are based on the things you observe about the patient, like general appearance, things they say, etc. For example, a patient with skin breakdown on his or her hip may get an ND of "impaired skin integrity" There's whole books of what qualifies for what- I can't elaborate further there off hand.

A goal is one thing you and the patient hope to achieve (with skin breakdown, the goal could be to stop and reverse it)

An intervention is what specifically you will do to to obtain your goal (to reverse skin breakdown, turn patient every 2 hours and keep area clean)

Outcome evaluation is whether you reached your patient care goals or not

That doesn't neccessarily apply to your patient, but I hope it helps.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

there is a sticky thread that has information on how to construct a care plan and many of the posts help demonstrate how to do just that: https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-student/help-care-plans-286986.html - help with care plans.

you are being asked to write a care plan for this patient. a care plan consists of identifying a patient's nursing problems (they are stated as nursing diagnoses). each nursing problem will have goals (or outcomes) and interventions developed for each. we use the nursing process, which is a 5-step procedure, to help us in identifying the patient's nursing problems. your scenario gave you the information that was needed to identify this person's nursing problems and develop a plan of care. i will show you how to get started with this assignment using the nursing process, which is the problem solving tool that we use to help us think critically as well as organize how we rationalize our thinking.

step #1 - assessment. nursing assessment consists of:

step #2 - determining the patient's nursing problems. after assessing the situation before you, do you see some problems here. there are at least 2 (doesn't that fall into place nicely?)

  1. the patient is going to need instruction and preparation in order for some of these tests to be done successfully
  2. there is a language barrier--he can't speak english and you, i assume, can't speak lakota

so, here's the deal. those two nursing problems need to be named and those names are called nursing diagnoses. i've already listed them in their priority. they are:

  1. deficient knowledge, test preparation - which is why you needed to do all that reading of those websites
  2. impaired verbal communication

and somewhere along the way, if this gentleman's colonoscopy and biopsies taken during the procedure do show positive for cancer he will need teaching regarding the disease and its treatment.

step #3 - planning. this is where you get into determining the two goals and two nursing interventions (things you will do for the problem) for each of the nursing diagnoses, or nursing problems. your goals are actually things you predict will happen as a result of the interventions you will do. isn't that logical? and when you have done this. most of your assignment is completed and you will have written a little care plan for this gentleman.

step #4 is the actual implementation of the care plan and your instructors assume that it will have been put into operation. what they are looking for in "v. how you will evaluate the outcome" of your assignment is actually step #5 of the nursing process - evaluation. in this step you determine if the goals you set for the patient back in step #3 were met or not. for an assignment like this where you have a non-existent patient it is a little difficult to evaluate and you have to do some pretending.

some time ago i posted guidelines on how goal statements should be written so evaluations could be done on them later. they go like this:

goal statements have four components:

  1. a
    behavior

    • this is the desired patient response/action you expect to see/hear as a direct result of your nursing interventions.

    • you must be able to observe the behavior

[*]it is
measurable

  • criteria that identifies exactly what you are measuring in terms of

    • how much

    • how long

    • how far

    • on what scale you are using

[*]sets the
conditions
under which the behavior should occur

  • such conditions as

    • when

    • how frequently

    [*]take into account the patient's overall state of health (this requires knowing the pathophysiology of their disease process)

    [*]take into account the patient's ability to meet the goals you are recommending

    [*]it is a good idea to get the patient's agreement to meet the intended goal so both the nurse and the patient are working toward the same goal

[*]have a realistic
time frame
for completing the goal

  • long-term goals usually take weeks or months

  • short-term goals can take as little time as a day

  • it all depends on knowing what your nursing interventions are designed to do and what you believe your patient is capable of doing.

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I agree with daytonite, in the post she used the same diagnosis I was thinking of as I was reading your post and would have suggested the same diagnosis

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