URGENT HELP!! with Risk Factors in the Nursing Diagnosis.....

[dfkatl]

help! after looking at the older posts, i am somewhat confused as to just what 'risk factors' are. i found two posts by daytonite (a wonderful person, always helping!) that seemed hard to reconcile.

in one it was said, "the related to factors need to be specific risk factors that are present that would cause the tissue breakdown, that you, the nurse, have the ability to control and/or manage. "

the other said,

risk for falls r/t risk factors: age over 65, osteoporosis, hearing loss, cataracts, myopia, and impaired memory. (anticipated need for safety - protection)

unless this is how your instructors want you to word "risk for" diagnoses, it is unnecessary to say "risk factors:" in the statement. everything that comes after the "r/t" is a risk factor in these diagnoses. i wouldn't capitalize all of them either. technically, osteoporosis, cataracts and myopia are medical diagnoses and shouldn't be used. they should be converted into a more acceptable nursing language.

my question: if everything that comes after the r/t is a risk factor...and they must be factors that the "nurse has the ability to control" ...how can the nurse "control" any of the above risk factors??

thank you...for a quick response!! need it asap!.....

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Well, now I'm confused because I am sure that you probably took the information out of context. "Risk for" diagnoses refer to anticipated problems. What problem are you working with and trying to write a diagnosis for?

[dfkatl]

Hi Daytonite - First, I apologize for not getting back to you and thank you for replying. You actually did reply pretty quickly, though, I needed it 'stat'...cause I had a timed test I was taking... :0

What i was trying to figure out (it has been a loooong time since I've 'torn apart', analysed etc. nursing diagnoses (i'm in a RN refresher course!) was...'what exactly a risk factor is'. I see and understand that in the second example I cited (from one of your postings and that yes, is out of context) all the 'risk factors' make sense...and understand why you said that 3 of them were actually medical diagnoses.....

But what confused me is that in the first 'citation' (also yours..) it said that the 'risk factors' needed to be able to be "managed a/o controled" by the nurse.

Well....let's take Impaired vision...I couldn't see how the nurse could control it....? nor the 'hearing loss" ....(maybe 'manage' means to take into consideration and compensate in other ways...? )

The question I was trying to answer when I wrote...said the nursing diagnosis was Risk for Injury: Falls r/t impaired vision. It then asked...what is/are the risk factors?

There were two choices of risk factors that both seemed good to me-yet I had to choose only one. One was "Falls"....(which the nurse DOES have the ability to control a/o manage) and the other one was "Impaired vision" (which the nurse does not have the ability to control a/o manage...at least I don't see how he/she does)

My common sense tells me a fall is a risk factor for Injury (more falls = more injuries)

Then again..impaired vision is too. (impaired vision "might" = more falls which then = more injuries)

The more I think about it, the more confused I get.

(I followed your 'model' in the second citation above, choosing impaired vision, which was correct!)

Any clarification on "risk factors" would be appreciated! (yes, seems simple -and I think it is just a case of semantics - which seems to be the case in lots of this 'nursing process'.....

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

This definition is directly from NANDA: Risk factors are "environmental factors and physiological, psychological, genetic, or chemical elements that increase the vulnerability of an individual, family or community to an unhealthful event." (page 420, NANDA International Nursing Diagnoses: Definitions and Classifications 2009-2011)