Hey friend, I'm Christina Rafano from nursing schoolofsuccess.com and you are watching the
nursing school show.
And today we are talking all about the nursing diagnosis part of nursing care plans.
And I'll give you 3 steps to help you choose the best nursing diagnosis for your specific
patient.
These 3 tips actually helped one of our NursingSOS members get a 37 out of 40 on her care plan.
Rock star!
Oh, and don't forget to hit subscribe and click that bell so you never miss out on a
video. So, let's do this!
Okay, so the first thing you need to know before choosing a nursing diagnosis for your
nursing school care plans is what your professor expects from you.
That's right: you gotta know what they're looking for.
And I'll tell you exactly what they're looking for: they want to know that YOU know WHY you're
doing everything that you're doing.
So you need to make sure you prove that you know WHY you're choosing that specific diagnosis.
And the best way to do that, is to fully assess your patient.
This is step one of choosing the best nursing diagnosis, you need to assess them.
You need to actually know your patient.
So spend time with them, assess them, get to know them, and understand their needs.
And when you actually know them and have assessed assessed your patient, you can choose the
most appropriate nursing diagnosis for that specific patient.
When one of your instructors sees that your nursing diagnosis actually matches your patient's
condition and your nursing assessment of them, that's the first step to proving to your instructor
that you know what you're doing, which is a huge part of acing your nursing school care
plans.
So you need to make sure that the nursing diagnosis that you pick is relevant to your
patient.
And the best way to do that is to actually assess them, of course.
So that's step one of choosing the best nursing diagnosis for your nursing school care plan:
make sure that you assess your patient fully.
And now step number 2: which is actually selecting the best nursing diagnosis for your specific
patient.
Now, I know your wondering where in the world can you find the list of NANDA International®
nursing diagnoses.
Those are the standard nursing diagnoses.
And the answer, my friend, is your textbook.
So NANDA International® (or NANDA-I® for short) is the association that creates the
actual standardized nursing diagnoses that you can use at clinical.
So you can't just go get some crazy nursing diagnosis, or make one up, these are actually
standardized.
And you can find the list of all of the nursing diagnoses in your nursing textbooks.
My favorite book is the Nursing Diagnosis Handbook by Elsevier and I'll put that link
below this video in the description if you'd like to check that out.
That book got me through nursing school, girl, so if you have the money definitely check
that book out.
It will save you, just, a ton of time on creating care plans.
But if you need, the textbooks you already have should have the most, if not all, of
the nursing diagnoses in there for you to choose from.
So those resources will help you choose and find the right nursing diagnosis for your
specific patient.
And now step number 3: you need to PRIORITIZE those nursing diagnoses.
Most schools will have you select 3, or maybe more, nursing diagnoses to write care plans
on.
And a huge part of this, and part of proving to your professors that you actually know
what you're doing, is prioritizing your nursing diagnoses correctly.
This is part of your critical thinking skills in nursing school, I know, that big scary
phrase: critical thinking.
But for your care plans, this just means that you are doing the most important things first
for your patient.
So for example, if you have a patient come in who's not really coherent and maybe can't
breathe well, you're not going to be as worried about their self-esteem needs in that moment
are you?
Of course not.
Because that's just not your priority right there.
You need to get them breathing first, you need to get their circulation stable, and
then we can move onto other things.
So, you need to make sure that you are prioritizing your nursing diagnoses correctly, from most
important (meaning the highest priority, or the very first thing that you'll focus on),
to the least important (or the lesser priorities, or the next things that you'll focus on).
So order your nursing diagnoses based on what you'll focus on first, second, third, and
so on.
And a little bonus tip for you on prioritization: there are 2 main principles you'll use to
prioritize your nursing diagnoses: Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs and the ABC's.
So let's talk about these.
So with Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs, you need to make sure that you are dealing with a patient's
physiological needs and safety needs first before you deal with things like their self-esteem
needs.
So that makes sense.
And this also goes along with the ABC's, which stands for airway, breathing and circulation,
meaning that you want to make sure that your patient is breathing and that their blood
is circulating properly first.
So you want to get those 3 things taken care of first before you move onto something else.
Now, of course, this all depends on your specific patient and what they're going through, so
make sure to use your awesome critical thinking skills and prioritize your nursing diagnoses
based on your specific patient.
And those are your 3 steps for choosing the best diagnosis for your nursing care plan:
you need to assess your patient, you need to select the best NANDA® nursing diagnosis
based on that specific patient, and then you need to prioritize those nursing diagnoses
properly, and 2 ways you can do that are by using Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs and the
ABC's.
Now make sure you download the free cheat sheet that goes along with this video so you
can walk through this step by step process each time you create a nursing school care
plan so you won't be missing out on anything.
You can find that link in the description below this video.
And, of course, if you liked this video let me know in the comments below, hit that like
button, share it with all your friends, and of course, be sure to subscribe and hit that
bell so you never miss out on a video.
Fantastic job my friend!
Now go become the nurse that God created only YOU to be.
And I will catch you next time on the nursing school show.
Take care.