Nursing diagnosis help, please..general question

[tunafish1]

Is a "Risk for..." ever used as a priority nursing diagnosis ?

I remember being instructed that it is not, but cannot find anything to substantiate it.

thank you.

[anonymousstudent]

My instructors this term won't even let me use them.

I have found that it just depends on the instructor.

My real issue with these is why do instructors tell you to do X number of nursing diagnoses, and tell you what kind to do? It makes NO sense. If I spend all day with a patient, much of which is assessment, don't you think I should be the one deciding what type and how many nursing diagnoses my patient needs? /rant

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

umm, maybe not, since you are a student and by definition you don't know enough about nursing to practice independently.

however, in answer to the original question, "risk for..." diagnoses can be priorities under some circumstances--many of which few students will ever be within 100 yards of in clinical rotations .

however, your faculty has seen plenty of students, enough to know that if they allow "r/f" nursing diagnoses they will soon be seeing nothing else, and they know that's because the students don't have the clinical acumen to look more deeply so they'll take the easier way out without knowing any better. most faculty will allow you to use a few in the secondary position, although if you have a good justification with supporting data, it doesn't matter where on the list it appears.

your faculty wants you to look for actual, existing nursing diagnoses in given categories so they can see you do the diagnostic process that you'll need for doing them in your future. so the answer is to do it the way your faculty wants it. it will make better sense the more you learn.

[anonymousstudent]

umm, maybe not, since you are a student and by definition you don't know enough about nursing to practice independently.

i absolutely agree with this statement. but surely you are not defending the practice of requiring 4 nursing diagnoses, for every patient, every single clinical? perhaps when i am finally a nurse and make the grand cross over i will understand that indeed, all patients have only 4 nursing diagnoses?

my instructor is paid to help me learn things. not to stand there while i pass meds and do dressing changes. if they'd take 5 blasted minutes to actually talk to me about my process and what i'm thinking, they might be able to actually see that i'm not just constructing useless dx's on my patients to get out of thinking. i'm really trying to do a good job. some of my patients need more than 4. some need less. and some need a risk for dx - post-op ortho patients absolutely need a risk for dvt dx. drives me crazy that we are just assumed to be lazy...