Need help with nursing diagnosis

AJJKRN · Mar 15, 2017

So what do you think?

(Is it just me or are nursing school questions getting weirder and weirder?)

MaNeTri · Mar 15, 2017

Actual dx:

Stress overload r/t stressors aeb client reports unable to work around her tasks

or

Anxiety r/t situational crises aeb clients states she's feeling apprehensive and unable to handle tasks.

Potential dx:

Risk for ineffective coping r/t apprehension and multiple stressors.

Risk SK for impaired social interaction r/t situational crises...

?

RobbiRN, RN · Mar 15, 2017

I'm not sure if the nursing school questions are getting weirder, but I am sure that the perception by the general public that one trip to the hospital will fix all of their problems is becoming increasingly prevalent. There should be one simple diagnosis to cover everything, like: Life Imbalance, secondary to years of poor decisions and a little bad luck.

NotMyProblem MSN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN · Mar 15, 2017

My first thought was what part of the scenario has ANYTHING to do with nursing...nobody is ill or seeking care or even has nursing visits. This is everyday life for an average person trying to make ends meet while 'bettering' him or herself. Since when do nurses form diagnosis on people who are simply living and working? So....trick question.

That being said, I do see how things in the scenario can become a little stressful and overwhelming....you can take it from there.

allnurses Guide · Mar 15, 2017

Hi! I am new to Allnurses.com and Im glad there are nurses who are selflessly helping other nurses and students. I am a mature student taking up nursing and I struggling to make an actual and potential nursing diagnosis. I am not sure if I'm on the right track... I've in one of the threads that I have to follow the ABC rule, but I'm stuck...
here's the scenario:
JM is 20-year old student, with 3 younger siblings, parents are both living, residing in Atlanta. She moved from Atlanta to California with her boyfriend. She is 2 weeks away from completing a course work, study for finals and buy a wedding gift for her aunt. She's having a hard time maintaining her part-time job in the gas station since she is doing 3 12-hour shifts in the clinical setting each week while squeezing in an English class every night. She lives on take out food and coffee while trying to finish her research paper and having a hard time writing it. Her boyfriend is asking her to spend more time with him

I'm thinking the OP is using a clever way to tell us of her own predicament in life . . . ?

Welcome to allnurses! :up:

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Mar 15, 2017

I am a mature student taking up nursing

Thread's been moved to our Nursing Student Assistance forum:

https://allnurses.com/nursing-student-assistance/

MaNeTri · Mar 15, 2017

Thread's been moved to our Nursing Student Assistance forum:
https://allnurses.com/nursing-student-assistance/

Thanks

Mavrick, BSN, RN · Mar 15, 2017

Iyanla needs to fix her life.

cocoa_puff · Mar 16, 2017

OP, is this scenario about you?

MaNeTri · Mar 16, 2017

OP, is this scenario about you?

No. ðŸ˜€

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2017

here's the scenario:
JM is 20-year old student, with 3 younger siblings, parents are both living, residing in Atlanta. She moved from Atlanta to California with her boyfriend. She is 2 weeks away from completing a course work, study for finals and buy a wedding gift for her aunt. She's having a hard time maintaining her part-time job in the gas station since she is doing 3 12-hour shifts in the clinical setting each week while squeezing in an English class every night. She lives on take out food and coffee while trying to finish her research paper and having a hard time writing it. Her boyfriend is asking her to spend more time with him

HI! Welcome to AN! The largest online nursing community!

What semester are you? Is this a real patient? I am thinking no...what a bizarre scenario. What are you studying now? Is this your psych rotation? What reference are you using for your nursing diagnosis?

I HATE these scenarios...they make no sense. Nursing diagnosis is all about the assessment of the patient. Telling me she is overwhelmed with a jerk for a boyfriend isn't a real assessment of the patient.

Here is my standard speech.....

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 the 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.

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 from our Daytonite

Assessment
(collect data from medical record, do a physical assessment of the patient, assess ADLS, look up information about your patient's medical diseases/conditions to learn about the signs and symptoms and pathophysiology)
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)
Planning
(write measurable goals/outcomes and nursing interventions)
Implementation
(initiate the care plan)
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.

Another member GrnTea say this best......

A nursing diagnosis statement translated into regular English goes something like this: "I think my patient has ____(nursing diagnosis)_____ . I know this because I see/assessed/found in the chart (as evidenced by) __(defining characteristics) ________________. He has this because he has ___(related factor(s))__."
"Related to" means "caused by," not something else.