Christina Rafano teaches nursing students how to build better care plans: assess your patient fully, use NANDA-I diagnoses from your textbook instead of making up terms, and prioritize using Maslow's hierarchy or ABCs to address the most urgent needs first.
Hey, friend. I'm Christina rafano here from nursingschoolofsuccess.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 three steps to help you choose the best nursing diagnosis for your specific patient. These three tips actually helped one of our nursing SOS members get a 37 out of 40 on her care plan Rockstar. 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 what, why you're doing everything that you're doing. So you need to make sure that 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 your patient, you can choose the most appropriate nursing diagnosis for that specific patient. When one of your instructor 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 is 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 two, which is actually selecting the best nursing diagnosis for your specific patient. Now, I know you're wondering, where in the world can you find the list of NANDA International Nursing diagnosis. Those are the standard nursing diagnoses. And the answer, my friend, is your textbook. 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 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 three, you need to prioritize those nursing diagnoses. Most schools will have you select three 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, 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 on to other things. So you need to make sure that you're 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, then third, and then so on. And a little bonus tip for you on prioritization, there are two main principles that you'll use to prioritize your nursing diagnoses. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the ABCs. 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 ABCs, 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 three things taken care of first before you move on to 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 three steps for choosing the best nursing 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 diagnosis diagnoses properly. And two ways you can do that are by using Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the ABCs. 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 of.
