Nursing Care Plan books

[juniorminty]

Can anyone suggest a good nursing care plan book? Were going into our second round of clinicals and will be doing care plans every week for a grade. I've done a few care plans for practice in class and have done OK on them but didn't really feel like I was completely understanding. I found the following two books on Amazon.com...they seem to have good reviews and I like the way both books are set up but I want to get all suggestions I can before I buy one since they are not cheap. If you can suggest any or if you've used either of these books (or their previous editions) I would appreciate the input. There are just soooo many to choose from! Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/Nursing-Diagnosis-Handbook-Evidence-Based-Planning/dp/0323071503/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309987113&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Nursing-Care-Plans-Diagnoses-Interventions/dp/0323065376/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309986875&sr=1-1

[BacktotheBeach, ADN, BSN, RN]

My school uses Ackley, the first one. I'm not thrilled with it, so I got 2 others to use with it. I would buy the previous edition of several, they are much cheaper and very much the same.

One I like is by Taylor.

[RKpianoman, APRN]

Most big bookstores (Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc) have a section devoted to academic books, and there should be a subsection for medical or nursing books. You should be able to find several different types of care plan books there. Personally, I use a Thompson-Delmar Medical-Surgical Care Plan book; it's broken down by different common illnesses, then nursing dx for that illness, evidence you should see for that ndx, expected outcomes, interventions with rational.

[Jennifer0512]

I actually really liked the Ackley book. I used it in all my care plans and it helped me out tremendously. It was highly recommended by my clinical instructor and everyone in my group bought a copy and sung its praises. Of course everyone has their own preferences and I'm sure it has to do with how your school requires you to write care plans, but I did want to throw in a vote for Ackley :)

[Despareux]

We used Ackley for our diagnoses and our text books for our rationales.

[RNCEN]

I use Gulanick and Myers 7th edition. Good book with diags and rationales, easy to use.

[lidleanjel]

I have about 5 care plan books and I use the NANDA the most. Think it is the easiest to use.

[pitaya]

Ackley's Nursing Diagnosis Handbook is by faaaar the best! I had another one before that and was super confused. Ackley cleared it up for me. :)