Prioritizing questions? How to answer?

Any words of wisdom for prioritizing questions used on the NCLEX? I take my boards on September 1 and have been studying Lippencott and Saunders Cd's. They didn't seem to have very many questions covering that kind of material. Is there a certain strategy I can use to help answer the questions correctly? Any kind of help will be appreciated.

Shanna

[Paleobug]

Yes, some of these review books are weak in this area. Someone in another thread recommended a prioritization book. The rule of thumb is ABCs-Airwyay, breathing and circulation. However, NSUXX(NCLEX) will try to trick you. It may give you an answer that has a respiratory patient that is stable versus other answer choices. You have to analyze the vital signs or what stage of treatment/recovery they are at to see which one is the least stable. Similarly in delegation. You want to assign an lpn to your most stable patient that doesn't need any teaching and whom you've already assessed, and you difinately don't want to assign a cna to do any nursing judgements, assessments or teaching.

[laterria]

I took the Sylvia Rayfield review coarse, and it was VERY helpful as far as mnemonics to help prioritize. There was this acronym called FIRST.

F- Find hypoxia

I- Immunocompromised

R- Real bleeding

S- Safety

T- Try infection

Also, there is one for TRIAGE:

T- Trauma

R- Respiratory/cardiac

I- ICP

A- An infection

G- GI

E- Elimination

Hope this helps!

[BORI-BSNRN, BSN, RN]

Laterria, That is awsome! thanks for sharing...I noticed that that is your first post so let me welcome you to allnurses! I've been looking some prep. related PRIORITIZING Q's and I think that alternative will help me. Thanks again :)

Bori

[BORI-BSNRN, BSN, RN]

Laterria, What ICP means? Thanks in advance.

[RNKay31]

Laterria, What ICP means? Thanks in advance.

ICP means Intra-cranial Pressure, think neuro

[BORI-BSNRN, BSN, RN]

Thanks Soon2beRNKAY31!!

[laterria]

Laterria, What ICP means? Thanks in advance.

ICP means intracranial pressure. 1st sign is a change in level of consciousness (LOC).

I want to expand on the Trauma in Triage. Trauma includes the 4 B'S: Breathing, Bleeding, Broken Bones, or Burns"

I think you can buy this book online. The name of the book is Nursing Made Insanely Easy! and the ISBN # is 0964362287.

Hope this helps!

[husker-nurse, LPN, LVN]

Remember your ABC's (airway, breathing, circulation); helped me a lot with NCLEX!

[RNKay31]

I saw in trauma, infection comes before elimination, but there was a question in kaplan 7th trainer, on who would the nurse see first, and there was apt with a UTI and a pt, post cateract surgery for 3 days and did not had a bowel movement, and the answer was the cateract pt, any helpers on this please.

[DolphinRN84, MSN, RN, APRN, NP]

I saw in trauma, infection comes before elimination, but there was a question in kaplan 7th trainer, on who would the nurse see first, and there was apt with a UTI and a pt, post cateract surgery for 3 days and did not had a bowel movement, and the answer was the cateract pt, any helpers on this please.

Kayla,

The answer is the cataract pt post op who hasn't had a bowel movement...i believe thats the right answer because you don't want the patient to have increased ocular pressure (IOP)...therefore constipation causes IOP which can create complications...so this person is potentially unstable and therefore the nurse has to see this pt. first..hope this makes sense.

forgot to add on here...constipation causes straining..therefore increasing pressure.

[RNKay31]

Kayla,

The answer is the cataract pt post op who hasn't had a bowel movement...i believe thats the right answer because you don't want the patient to have increased ocular pressure (IOP)...therefore constipation causes IOP which can create complications...so this person is potentially unstable and therefore the nurse has to see this pt. first..hope this makes sense.

forgot to add on here...constipation causes straining..therefore increasing pressure.

Thanks lena for your input.