Quick Review of the Nursing Process (& Practice Problems To Help You Prep For Your Exam!)

Hey there friend. My name is Christina Rafano from nursingsos.com and today in this video, I'm gonna break down the nursing process for you. And I also have some fun practice questions for you so you can quiz yourself at the end. Super fun. So be sure to hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let's dive in. So there's a fancy little memory trick that you'll hear for the nursing process when you are in nursing school. Really it's all throughout nursing school, not just nursing fundamentals, but all throughout your nursing program. And that is adpie. Adpie. So when you think of the nursing process, think adpy and this is what it stands for. Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation. ADD pie. So we'll break down each step, talk through the exact steps that you're going to follow with every single one of your patients. That's what the nursing process is. So the first step is the A in adpie and this is assessment. So assessment is by far the number one most important thing you will ever do as a nurse and you will be doing this all of the time. So knowing how to assess a patient really well, it's what's going to set you apart and take super great care of your patients when you are at clinical. So if you're thinking what exactly is the nursing assessment, do you do not worry, we're going to go through it. The nursing assessment has two main components to it. Collecting data, meaning taking things like vital signs and getting the patient's history, asking them questions about their lifestyle and performing your head to toe assessment or a focused nursing assessment. So that is collecting data and then critical thinking. Now critical thinking, this is the big one because you are constantly tested on critical thinking in nursing school and you've got to use it at clinical. So as you're performing nursing assessment, so you're taking the patient's vital signs, you're asking your patient questions and performing your head to toe assessment. Right you are with the critical thinking. You are constantly thinking about what could be going on with them and what you need to assess for further. That's the critical thinking piece in nursing. You're always thinking ahead and noticing things, observing things and making sure that you are looking at the full picture of your patient. I actually have a free critical thinking cheat sheet to help you out with process that I would love to give to you. You can click click that link down below in the description. You can snag that. I'll walk you through some really important things to be thinking about while you study to really help these concepts come together and help you critically think better. Now, in the assessment step of the nursing process, the A and adpy, you are going to be asking your patient questions, doing your head to toe assessment or focused assessment, and using those critical thinking skills to get an idea of what might actually be going on with your patient and then what you need to ass further. So let's move on to that D in adpy, the diagnosis step in the nursing process. This is not a medical diagnosis, like heart failure or stroke. The nursing diagnosis is not a medical diagnosis. The nursing diagnosis is the patient's response to what is happening with them. So for example, the nursing diagnosis is not a medical diagnosis such as asthma, but if your patient with asthma is really very short of breath and working hard to breathe, and the nursing diagnosis could be something like impaired gas exchange or ineffective breathing pattern because that is the patient's response to their asthma. So now that we understand that it isn't a medical diagnosis, you are probably wondering, well, how do I come up with these wonderful nursing diagnoses that are responses to what is happening with the patient? Right. That is a huge, huge question in nursing school. Well, my friend, nursing diagnoses, these are actually standardized. So this makes it so easy for you. There's actually an organization called the North American Nursing Diagnosis association. Super fancy. It's called nanda, NANDA International or NANDA I for short. They have a whole list of standardized nursing diagnoses that you will use. So this actually makes it way easier for you because all you need to do is choose from that list for your patient. So super easy. And where in the world do you find all of those nursing diagnoses? This was a huge question. I had a nursing school. So let's talk about it. The NANDA Nursing Diagnoses is inside the Nursing Diagnosis Handbook by Acclaim Ludwig. It is my go to resource for all things nursing diagnoses. All the nursing diagnoses listed in the front of the book, they are explained all throughout the book. This book basically writes your care plans for you. It is a must have tool in your toolbox for nursing school. So I actually did a whole video on it right here. So check that out if you want to know how to use that book and help you save a ton of time studying in nursing school. I wish I had done it sooner, so I wanted to share that with you because it's so, so important. So that is the diagnosis that Dean adpy. It's not a medical diagnosis, okay? It's a nursing diagnosis. That is the patient's response to what is going on with them. So now let's talk about the next step in the nursing process. That P in adpie, which stands for planning, planning, just means that you are figuring out how the patient will achieve their goals. So really, these are the nursing interventions that you will do to make these goals happen. Now, all of this is part of the PN adpy, the planning step of the nursing process of planning out exactly what you're going to do as a nurse to help your patients reach their health goals through your interventions, through those nursing interventions that you're going to be doing. Now, the next step of the nursing process is implementation. Now this is the I in adpie, this is actually where you do what you had planned to do in that previous step. So, so so far you have assessed your patient, you've written out that nursing diagnosis for your patient, right? And you have planned what you are going to do as interventions to help your patient achieve their goals. So now onto that implementation phase, you are simply doing the interventions that you came up with in that planning phase. So this is where you are doing the actual hands on care, implementing those interventions that will help your patient really reach their goals. So that is the implementation phase of the nursing process. It's all about making those interventions happen as the nurse for the best outcomes for your patients. And then finally, the last step of the nursing process is evaluation. So the E and ADPY stands for evaluation, where you evaluate if your patient met their goals or not and what needs to be changed in order to help them meet their goals or what new goals should be created. This is basically an assessment all over again. So remember we said that an assessment is one of the most important things that you will do as a nurse. That is something that you will be doing. So so often it's critical. So you're always evaluating your patient's progress, where they are in their recovery journey and what needs to be changed in their plan of care in the previous steps to help them meet their health goals. So this is just a reassessment of your patient to see how much progress they're making and if anything needs to be changed in that care plan. That is the last step of the nursing process. So now let's go through some practice problems because this has been a huge request in our YouTube community. I am so, so glad that you guys are leaving comments and letting me know the requests that you have because I love that. I always, always like hearing from you and what you want to see on this Channel I want to give you, obviously, the things that are going to the most in nursing school and practice problems was a big one. So I'm really excited to bring you more practice problems in my videos here on this channel. So stay tuned for that. Let's go through these ones for the nursing process. You can test your knowledge. So question number one. A client has just been admitted to the hospital for an acute asthma attack. Which of the following will the nurse do first? Okay, so we're always looking for keywords in any NCLEX question or any nursing school practice question. What will the nurse do first? Okay, key word there for you. So A, make a plan of care, B, assess the patient, C, document the nursing diagnosis or D, call the doctor for a medication order. Okay, so when we remember our adpy, right, Our nursing assessment acronym, or mnemonic, whatever you want to call it, Memory trick. Adpie. Adpie. So assessment is always first. All right, so let's look at this question and look at these answers and let's see if there's anything that sticks out to us as far as assessing our patient before we do anything else like that is the key principle that you want to make sure you are keeping in the back of your mind, my friend. You will be amazed at how many nursing school questions you get, not just in nursing school, but also on the NCLEX that can be answered correctly if you make sure to assess your patient first before you do anything else. So this is a key, key principle for you to make sure that you remember. Okay, so A, make a plan of care, B, assess the patient, C, document the nursing diagnosis or D, call the doctor for a medication order. Well, we know that assessment comes first. So B is assessing the patient planning. CARE would be that P in adpy, the C letter. C would be documenting the nursing diagnosis. That's D, that's, that's the D&APPy, which would be the nursing diagnosis. And then the answer D here, call the doctor for a medication order that would be implementing what you had planned to do. That would actually be doing a nursing intervention. We are not going to call the doctor for something when we haven't assessed our patient first. So what will the nurse do first? That is our key word, right? Which of the following will the nurse do first? So the correct answer here is B, we need to assess our patient. Does that make sense? We're not going to call the doctor for a medication order before we assess our patient. We need to assess our patient first to know, you know what, what's going on with them if they truly are having an asthma attack and all those things. Like we need to actually kind of corroborate those things first before we can do anything about it. We can't make a plan of care. We can't make a nursing diagnosis. Right. Until we ass our patient and gather up all that data and know what's going on with them. Okay, I hope that makes sense. Now, question number two. The nurse is caring for a client who is diagnosed with left sided heart failure. Which of the following will the nurse do first? Again, keyword, which of the following will the nurse do first? Okay, so A, establish the plan of care, B, administer diuretics, C, evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment or D give oxygen. Okay, so when you are, anytime you're looking at a test question on your nursing school exams or on the nclex, we want to make sure we are following that ADPY process. Assessment is always first assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. So here none of these answers give us anything to assess for. So we're going to administer diuretics, evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment, give oxygen, or establish the plan of care. So plan of care, that is the P&AD pie. I guess that could also be like the D if you're making a nursing diagnosis as far as establishing the plan of care. But those would need to come first. So establishing a plan of care would need to come first before we give oxygen and before we administer diuretics and before we can evaluate if the treatment is working. Right. We can't evaluate the treatment until we do the treatment and we can't do the treatment until we have a plan of care. We can't have a plan of care until we assess our patients. Right. So that is why it's in that ad by order, assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. So here in this question, the answer is a, establish the plan of care because we have to do that first before we can do any nursing interventions like administer the diuretics or give oxygen. And we need to do those things first before we can evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment. So I hope that makes sense. Let me know if you have questions about it. Now, number three, a client is scheduled to be discharged in the morning after being in the hospital for three days. The nurse recognizes which of the following as the last step in the nursing process. Now this is a fabulous example of a question that you have to read thoroughly. Make sure you read the entire question before you assume what it's asking you for. So this question, the first part, it gives us information about A patient, right. A client is scheduled to be discharged in the morning after being in the hospital for three days. But really the question that they're actually asking for doesn't have much to do with that. The question that they're asking is the nurse recognizes which of the following as the last step in the nursing process. Okay, so let's go through it. A contacting the doctor for a discharge order. B collecting the discharge paperwork. C evaluating the client's progress and D giving medications and treatment. Okay? So when you walk through the nursing process. Adpy adpie, the last step in the nursing process is evaluating, reassessing that patient, evaluating their progress. Okay. And we see that in C evaluating the client's progress. Okay. A contacting the doctor for a discharge order not part of the nursing process. B collecting the discharge paperwork. That's not part of the nursing process. I guess you could put like it's an implementation. Maybe like I'm implementing the plan of care by collecting the discharge paperwork. I guess you could make a argument for that. Evaluating C evaluating the client's progress. That is the last step in the nursing process. Evaluating. That's the key word you're looking for. And now D giving medications and treatments that is actually doing a nursing intervention. So that would fall under the I, that implementation of the nursing process. So I hope you found these questions to be fun. I really like practice questions and going through them with you because I really hope, I hope that it helps and I think that it helps to put all these concepts together and help you critically think about it. So if you want more practice questions, please, please, please let me know. Leave a comment below this video I would love to hear from you. Now studying for your exam is only half of the game in nursing school, right? You also need to be able to take the test well and and answer the questions correctly. Huge deal. So that's why I made this video here that walks you through some of the top test taking strategies that you can use to pass nursing school exams. So definitely check that one out now. It's going to help you so, so much. And as always, my friend, write love in the comments below if you liked this video because that is just what we do around here. And go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I will see you over there in that next video.