Nursing diagnoses are the terms in which your nurse will
think. A nursing diagnosis is the
nurse’s clinical judgment about the client’s response to actual or potential
health conditions or needs (American Nurses Association, 2015). When a nurse
does an assessment on a patient, they then determine a plan of care based on
your overall health status. Some
examples of nursing diagnoses that are under consideration for shingles are…
- Impaired Comfort…
- Acute Pain…
- Social Isolation…
- Risk for infection…
- Readiness for enhanced immunization status… (Ackley, Ladwig, 2014).
With these diagnoses, the nurse then determines if they are
an actual diagnoses (this is occurring with the patient in the moment), or
potential (the patient is at risk for this diagnosis). Then the nurse must
figure out what the diagnosis is related to.
This essentially means, what is causing the diagnosis. Then the nurse must make a plan to intervene
on the diagnosis and determine what outcome is appropriate for the
patient. Then finally, the nurse will
implement their intervention. Below I
have created a table that explains the process for one nursing diagnosis. Keep in mind that for each patient, there can
be an unlimited amount of nursing diagnoses to care for.
Nursing Diagnosis
|
Actual or Potential
|
Related to…
|
Plan and Outcome
|
Nursing Intervention
|
Risk for infection…
|
Actual…
|
Related to infectious particles inside of rash
|
Implement infection precautions. Outcome is to limit the spread of infection.
|
|
(Ackley, Ladwig, 2014)
In this instance, risk for infection is the nursing
diagnosis. This is an actual diagnosis
because the patient can spread the infection if the rash has not scabbed
over. This can put healthcare workers
and family members at risk for contracting the virus if they are not
careful. This infectivity is related to
having the active virus inside the pustules of the rash. The nurse will plan to limit the spread of
infection to others, in which the desired outcome is that nobody else becomes
infected. In order to achieve this
desired outcome, the nurse will have to elicit many interventions. Some of these interventions are located in
the last column above.
This link below is a case study for a patient with
Shingles. Here they show the nursing
process along with the plan of care.
This link describes the nursing process which includes the
nursing diagnosis that I have explained here.
REFRENCES:
Ackley, B., Ladwig, G. (2014). Nursing Diagnosis Handbook.
Elseiver, 10th Edition. Page 105.
American Nurses Association. (2015). The nursing process.
Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/EspeciallyForYou/What-is-Nursing/Tools-You-Need/Thenursingprocess.html