Help with a nursing diagnosis

[OU812IC]

Hopefully this is a simple question. I've scoured the web and my books as best I could, im looking to see if its appropriate to use a medical diagnosis as a related factor of a nursing diagnosis, IE: can i use diagnosed schizoaffective disorder as a related factor with disturbed thought process or impaired verbal communication. not the case, im just pipcking a few things out of the air. I hope this isnt too stupid, i honestly thought i heard somewhere this was acceptable, but cant find the language to back it up.

Thanks for any and all asistance

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

What I was taught was officially you can't. My last semester my prof said, "well sometimes the NDx IS r/t the medical dx -- don't tell the underclassmen."

Officially though, no. Do you have a NANDA-I book? That would be a good place to start. Otherwise, ask your instructor for guidance. NANDA approved NDx was never my strong suit...just let me fogure out what the pt needs and why.

[AliNajaCat]

It's a myth that a nursing diagnosis cannot be caused by a medical diagnosis. Said another way, there's no reason the medical diagnosis can't be a related factor IF it appears in the approved list of related factors in the NANDA-I 2015-2017 (current edition). You need to have the current book-- its not that expensive, it's very easy to use, so even if they didn't tell you about it in school, go to your favorite online bookseller and get it stat. It will help you enormously to understand this critical "think like a nurse" thing, developing plans of nursing care, which is what you're in school for.

For example, just pulling mine down and opening it to a few random pages, I get, umm, lessee here:

Sleep deprivation. One of the related factors is "sustained circadian asynchrony," a medical diagnosis.

Reflex urinary incontinence, and one of the defining characteristics is "neurological impairment above the level of sacral micturation center."

Here's Chronic pain, and one of the defining characteristics is "immune disorder, e.g., HIV-associated neuropathy, varicella -zoster virus."

Acute pain: related to -- "Biological injury agent, e.g., infection, ischemia, neoplasm; chemical injury agent, e.g, burn, capsaicin, mustard agent; physical injury agent, e.g., abscess, amputation, burn, cut, surgery.... "

See? It's all there. Now go and see what the approved defining characteristics and related factors there are for the diagnosis you'd like to make, and see if you can make it.