Nur 440: Assessment Tool Analysis In Nursing Care
Assessment Tool Analysis
NUR/440
Week 3
January 1, 2014
Assessment is a vital aspect of nursing care. Assessment is the first phase of the nursing process. A thorough assessment involves gathering information and data about and related to the patient. The data that is collected includes physiological, psychological, environmental, sociocultural, economical, spiritual, and developmental history of the patient. Data may be objective or subjective. Objective data refers to the measurable and observable signs, such as the patient’s heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, temperature, facial expression, gait, color, etc. Subjective data is obtained from the patient himself and it is the patient’s account of their …show more content…
“The PSS is a 14-item scale designed to measure the degree to which individuals appraise situations in their lives as stressful. An abbreviated scale, including 4 of the original scale items, has also been developed. PSS items were designed to tap the degree to which respondents find their lives unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloading: three issues central to the appraisal of stress” (Cohen, 1986). The PSS is a self-administering questionnaire that explores the individual’s feelings encountered over a month period and measures the degree to which the individual considers certain situations as stressful to one’s life. The items 1-10 are general questions, and they have five responses each ranging from “never” to “very often”. In scoring the PSS, reverse the score for the responses to items numbers: 4, 5, 7, and 8 (the positively scored items), and all the scores across the 10 items are summed up. The scores range from 0-40; the higher the score is, the greater the stress. According to Cohen (1986), “because it (PSS) does not tie appraisal to particular situations, it is sensitive to the nonoccurrence of events as well as to the ongoing life circumstances, to stress resulting from events occurring in the lives of friends and relatives, and to expectations concerning future events” (p.718). By using the PSS is the assessment phase of the nursing process, the nurse can possibly identify the patient’s risk for stress, explore how the patient copes in a stressful situation, and design a way to work with the patient in a way that can improve the quality of care the patient
NUR/440
Week 3
January 1, 2014
Assessment is a vital aspect of nursing care. Assessment is the first phase of the nursing process. A thorough assessment involves gathering information and data about and related to the patient. The data that is collected includes physiological, psychological, environmental, sociocultural, economical, spiritual, and developmental history of the patient. Data may be objective or subjective. Objective data refers to the measurable and observable signs, such as the patient’s heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, temperature, facial expression, gait, color, etc. Subjective data is obtained from the patient himself and it is the patient’s account of their …show more content…
“The PSS is a 14-item scale designed to measure the degree to which individuals appraise situations in their lives as stressful. An abbreviated scale, including 4 of the original scale items, has also been developed. PSS items were designed to tap the degree to which respondents find their lives unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloading: three issues central to the appraisal of stress” (Cohen, 1986). The PSS is a self-administering questionnaire that explores the individual’s feelings encountered over a month period and measures the degree to which the individual considers certain situations as stressful to one’s life. The items 1-10 are general questions, and they have five responses each ranging from “never” to “very often”. In scoring the PSS, reverse the score for the responses to items numbers: 4, 5, 7, and 8 (the positively scored items), and all the scores across the 10 items are summed up. The scores range from 0-40; the higher the score is, the greater the stress. According to Cohen (1986), “because it (PSS) does not tie appraisal to particular situations, it is sensitive to the nonoccurrence of events as well as to the ongoing life circumstances, to stress resulting from events occurring in the lives of friends and relatives, and to expectations concerning future events” (p.718). By using the PSS is the assessment phase of the nursing process, the nurse can possibly identify the patient’s risk for stress, explore how the patient copes in a stressful situation, and design a way to work with the patient in a way that can improve the quality of care the patient