NURS 4100 Nursing Care Of Special Client Populations
An asynchronous online course that explores the role of the nurse in providing health care to clients in a variety of culturally diverse communities. Students will learn methods for assessing community health needs, techniques used to restore and maintain the health of diverse populations and strategies for promoting wellness in clients across the lifespan. Cultural and ethnic factors impacting health care beliefs and practices will be explored. Students will be challenged to use introspection and conscious examination of their own belief and values systems to increase their sensitivity, respect, and caring for others. Clinical component to this course: Clinical experiences will expose students to a variety of community health environments providing opportunities to practice health promotion behaviors in the delivery of health care to diverse populations.
Sample Essay
NURS 4100 Nursing Care Of Special Client Populations
Describe a patient you have assessed in the past 6 months from a special population. What strategies did you use to gather pertinent information for the comprehensive health assessment?
What are the links you see between accuracy of a nurse’s comprehensive assessment and patient quality and safety for this special population?
New nurses often think that once you learn how to complete a head to toe assessment, you can master any of them. However, it’s often forgotten that there are special populations that can be a bit more challenging. We have to remember that every patient is different and we have to learn how to assess our patients as thoroughly and accurately as possible, while also working with their unique and individual needs. I have worked with the adult and elderly population for the last several years. Recently I decided to go outside of my comfort level and start working with the neonatal and pediatric populations. Although I love the change, it definitely comes with its challenges.
The pediatric population is one of the many special populations that can be very difficult to assess or collect health history. This is not only because their status can change so fast, but also because every child has a very different perception of things (Estes, 2013); some have higher pain tolerance, some may be more scared of different things and some kids have more trust in unfamiliar people than others. A particular pediatric patient that I have recently assessed was a little boy who had a traumatic brain injury. He was non-verbal. Because he was unable to answer my questions, I asked his mom questions after my initial assessment. His mom knew him better than anyone and saw all the changes that he made since she stayed with him throughout his hospitalization. This gave me more information that I was not able to obtain because “although a patient’s health history is subjective information, the information can be obtained from someone other than the patient” (Estes, 2013). Parents are a great resource when assessing the pediatric population.
Although it may be challenging at times to complete thorough assessments and get accurate health history, doing so is very important. I wholeheartedly believe that the more thorough of an assessment nurses can obtain, the safer and better quality of care that is provided. Most patients can tell you when something isn’t right, but a large majority of the pediatric population as well as those that are non-verbal, are not able to do so. Accurate assessments help nurses as well as the interdisciplinary team to identify changes faster based off of baseline assessment information, usually leading to better outcomes (Estes, 2013). Accurate health history is also very important to understand if any of their current health issue is related to chronic conditions that might have exacerbating symptoms (Estes, 2013).
