Need help w/ NDX

hi, ecpistudent2008, and welcome to allnurses! :welcome:

it's too bad i didn't see this post until today. if it had been posted on the nursing student assistance forum i would have found it right away.

first of all, any nursing diagnosis is based upon the signs and symptoms of the problem at hand, not upon the medical diagnosis. the medical diagnosis becomes important for the pathophysiology that it contributes to the problem, and the signs and symptoms of the disease process.

you must follow the nursing process in the sequence of steps in doing any care plan. you cannot start picking nursing diagnoses until you have thoroughly assessed and come up with a list of signs and symptoms that the patient will have or has. and, any diagnosis is based upon the symptoms that you have.

also, nanda does not recognize infection as a valid diagnosis. so, what you have to do is, again, look at the symptoms the patient has of the infection. here is where knowledge of the pathophysiology of infections is critical. every infection begins with the inflammatory response, the symptoms of which proceed in this order: redness, heat, swelling and pain. whether the infection in external (as on the skin where you can see it) or internal (as in an organ), these four symptoms are always there to some degree along with the bacterial invasion. you just have to look for them. so, you will often end up with other nursing diagnoses, such as hyperthermia, or acute pain, but there are others as well.

if it isn't too late, i would strongly suggest that you look up the signs and symptoms of ra and mrsa and put them on a signs and symptoms list. then, using a nursing diagnosis reference, look for defining characteristics (nanda term for symptoms) listed under various nursing diagnoses that will match with them to find suitable nursing diagnoses. every nursing diagnosis has a list of symptoms that goes with it.

for more information on care planning and nursing diagnosing, see these threads:

• https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/help-nursing-care-plans-277791.html
  
• https://allnurses.com/forums/f8/desparately-need-help-care-plan-279187.html
  
• https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/desperately-need-help-careplans-170689.html - desperately need help with careplans (in nursing student assistance forum) - post #109 has the list of ackley/ladwig links to nursing diagnosis pages - psychosocial diagnoses are listed on post #145; wellness diagnoses are listed on post #84; an explanation of the difference between outcomes and goals on post #75
  
  
• https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/careplans-help-please-r-t-aeb-121128-7.html - careplans help please! (with the r\t and aeb) (in general nursing student discussion forum) - how to write long term goals is discussed on post #157