SCIENTIFIC PROCESS OF
NURSING
By
AYUGI WINNYFRED
PATIENCE
Bcs. Midwifery student.
Objectives.
• By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:
Define the term nursing process
State the characteristics of the nursing process.
Describe the components of the nursing process.
Know the benefits of the nursing process.
Apply nursing process when giving nursing care.
The nursing process
Defn.
Is a systematic, rational method of planning and
providing individualized nursing care.
Its purpose is to identify a client’s health status
and actual or potential health care problems or
needs, to establish plans to meet the identified
needs, and to deliver specific nursing
interventions to meet those needs.
The client may be an individual, a family, a
community, or a group.
Scholars
Hall originated the term nursing process in 1955,
and Johnson (1959), Orlando (1961), and
Wiedenbach (1963) were among the first to use
it to refer to a series of phases describing the
practice of nursing.
Since then, various nurses have described the
process of nursing and organized the phases in
different ways.
Overview of the Nursing Process
The use of the nursing process in clinical practice
gained additional legitimacy in 1973 when the
phases were included in the American Nurses
Association (ANA) Standards of Nursing Practice.
The Nursing Practice in Action
The Nursing Practice in Action
Action cont.
Action cont.
The nursing process cont.
Overview of the Nursing Process
Overview of the Nursing Process
Phases of the Nursing Process
The Standards of Practice within the most current
Scope and Standards of Nursing Practice include six
phases of the nursing process:
Assessment
Diagnosis
Outcomes identification
Planning
Implementation, and
Evaluation (ANA, 2010).
Phases cont.
The national licensure examination for registered
nurses (NCLEX) uses five phases:
Assessment
Analysis
Planning
Implementation, and
Evaluation.
This text, and most others, uses five phases:
assessing, diagnosing (which includes outcomes
identification and analysis), planning, implementing,
and evaluating.
Characteristics of the Nursing Process
The nursing process has distinctive
characteristics that enable the nurse to respond
to the changing health status of the client.
These characteristics include its cyclic and
dynamic nature, client centeredness, focus on
problem solving and decision making,
interpersonal and collaborative style, universal
applicability, and use of critical thinking.
X-tics cont.
Data from each phase provide input into the next
phase.
-Findings from the evaluation phase feed back into
assessment.
-Hence, the nursing process is a regularly repeated
event or sequence of events (a cycle) that is
continuously changing (dynamic) rather than
staying the same (static).
X-tics cont.
■ The nursing process is client centered. The nurse
organizes the plan of care according to client
problems rather than nursing goals.
In the assessment phase, the nurse collects data to
determine the client’s habits, routines, and needs,
enabling the nurse to incorporate client routines
into the care plan as much as possible.
X-tics cont.
The nursing process is an adaptation of problem
solving can be viewed as parallel to but separate
from the process used by physicians (the medical
model). Both processes (a) begin with data
gathering and analysis, (b) base action
(intervention or treatment) on a problem
statement (nursing diagnosis or medical
diagnosis), and (c) include an evaluative
component.
X-tics cont.
• However, the medical model focuses on
physiological systems and the disease process,
whereas the nursing process is directed
toward a client’s responses to real or potential
disease and illness.
X-tics cont.
■ Decision making is involved in every phase of the
nursing process. Nurses can be highly creative in
determining when and how to use data to make
decisions.
-They are not bound by standard responses and
may apply their repertoire of skills and knowledge
to assist clients. This facilitates the individualization
of the nurse’s plan of care.
X-tics cont.
■ The nursing process is interpersonal and
collaborative.
-It requires the nurse to communicate directly and
consistently with clients and families to meet their
needs.
-It also requires that nurses collaborate, as members
of the health care team, in a joint effort to provide
quality client care.
X-tics cont.
■ The universally applicable characteristic of the
nursing process means that it is used as a
framework for nursing care in all types of health
care settings, with clients of all age groups.
■ Nurses must use a variety of critical thinking skills
to carry out the nursing process provides
examples of critical thinking in the nursing process.
Benefits of the nursing process.
• Benefits of the nursing process:
To the patient.
• Quality client care
• Continuity of care
• Participation by the patient in their health care.
To the nurse.
• Consistent and systematic nursing education.
• Job satisfaction in terms of well- written care plan
• For professional growth by evaluating the effectiveness of he nursing
interventions
• Meet professional standards through learning and implementing the
nursing process.
References.
• Nursing and midwifery procedure
manual,2015.
• Fundamentals of nursing 2nd edition, BT
Basavanthappa.
