NURSING The Role of Assessment in Nursing



The Role of Assessment in Nursing

Nursing

Nursing is a very visible and valued health profession. At workforce of 2.5 million, registered nurses are the largest health care occupation. Each year, in Gallup's annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions poll, nursing voted as the most respected profession in the United States. The impact of nurses on health care and the care of individuals and their families are wide-reaching. Nurses coordinate and provide care in nearly every aspect of the health care arena, and the impact that the nurse has on the family is immense.

Some examples of nurse-family interaction include inpatient hospital care, nursing homes, outpatient, primary care clinics, specialty practice, schools, prisons, homeless shelters, public health, and home health care. Educational preparation for nursing is variable. This entry provides a description of the different types of nursing health care providers. An overview of the general education and philosophical perspectives of nursing health care are providers given. Last, family nursing theory and the preparation of nursing health care providers in family health highlighted (Zubenko, 2003).

Define assessment and show your understanding of its importance in the provision of nursing care within the nursing process.

Nursing care context involves caring for the individual in the context of his or her family. This model is seen as a beginning-level view of family nursing care, and it is a competency met by a nursing generalist prepared with a BSN. The individual receiving care, the care recipient, is at the forefront of care, and the family assessed as part of the care recipient's environment and as context for understanding the care recipient and his or her health concerns. For example, “You tell me that your mother, who is in frail health and requires much care, lives with you. Have you thought about getting help with her care while you are recovering from surgery?”

Competencies with nursing care of the family increase as nurses gain more education and experience. Thus, the master's prepared nurse is competent in the care of the family as context also educated in the family as a unit or system. This nurse views the family as a unit in the foreground and as a component of the family unit. The family nurse practitioner (FNP) is an example of the nurse prepared to assess the family as a unit or system. Typically the FNP employed in a family practice setting where there is the opportunity to care for many members of the same family (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

These experienced nurses view the family as a system whose parts are in constant interaction with one another and constant interaction with the larger world. For example, if the main wage earner for the family is seriously ill, the FNP understands this impact and its ripple effect through the family. The FNP would include the family system in the assessment and might ask questions such as “How will the family provide food for the members?” “How will health services be paid for?” The FNP ...