Physical assessment: implications for nurse educators and nursing practice

Abstract

Nurses and other health professionals must perceive that this role expansion will improve health outcomes for the diverse populations accessing health care. Teaching physical assessment skills within a holistic health model will enable nurses to contribute a more comprehensive health assessment to the planning and monitoring of people's health care.

Development of the Quality of Nursing Care Scale for Hospitalized Acute Respiratory Infection Children in Indonesia

“…Similar to the study of Lesa and Dixon (2007) in Nigeria, they found an aberration with the clinical training given to nurses in the training institutions largely because of a lack of equipment, lack of continuous training and re-orientation on the job by some employers, lack of commitment on the part of the nurse professionals, and nurses seeing their professional training as just the necessity for registration and licensure. One possible way to reduce the morbidity and mortality of ARI children and increase the quality of nursing care of ARI children is to develop a scale of The Quality of Nursing Care For Hospitalized Ari Children (QNCS-HARIC).…”

Desarrollo y validación de un instrumento para la evaluación inicial de enfermeira

“…Nevertheless, nursing assessment is frequently put on a level with physical assessment, so that the assessment nurses are taught is based on medical models, in which they learn procedures that are part of physicians' competency and which nurses will rarely use (9,(14)(15) . Therefore, the inclusion of physical assessment to complement psychological and social evaluation is recommended to guarantee comprehensive instead of fragmented care (12,(16)(17) .…”

“…This first phase is focused on the theoretical background of the construct for which an instrument is to be developed and involves an operational definition through the inclusion of representative items (21) . In our case, the researchers designed the instrument based on the theoretical constructs of Gordon's Functional Health Patterns, as well as comprehensive bibliography on initial nursing assessment (1,4,(7)(8)(9)(14)(15)17,19) . Thus, the following 12 categories are included: Physical assessment, Health perceptionmanagement, Nutritional-metabolic pattern, Elimination, Activity-exercise, Sleep-rest, Cognitive-perceptual pattern, Self-perception-self concept, Role-relationship, Sexuality-reproductive, Coping-stress tolerance and Value-belief.…”

“…Another problematic aspect in the assessment is the lack of a focus on the application of the NP (9,(14)(15) . In that sense, some authors have appointed that the availability of a well-designed assessment instrument presupposes help for nurses to gain critical thinking skills with a view to acknowledging what is relevant (1) , integrating the patient's psychosocial and physiological responses (16) .…”

“…In that sense, some authors have appointed that the availability of a well-designed assessment instrument presupposes help for nurses to gain critical thinking skills with a view to acknowledging what is relevant (1) , integrating the patient's psychosocial and physiological responses (16) . Moreover, if a nursing model is adopted in its design, this further a consensus on what nursing terminology to use, contributing to the definition and enhancement of nurses' role (14,17) .…”