Question

Styles 4 .5 .6 .7 . 1: Should nurses conduct a focused assessment on each patient or a comprehensive health assessment? Are the findings bound to be the same? Explain why or why not. 2.Describe how you would adapt the health assessment to a healthy school- aged child, a pregnant adolescent, and a geriatric patient respectively What is necessary for these individual patient populations?

Answer 1

1. Nursing health assessment is crucial in nursing practice. In a community health setting, general health assessment is essential for planning and delivery of patient and family-centered care. Different types of general health assessments include comprehensive health assessment, interval assessment, focused assessment, and assessment for special populations.

Comprehensive health assessment involves collection of information regarding health history of the patient and physical examination. It includes measuring vital signs, assessment of body systems, examining behavioral influences, etc. Focused assessment is a detailed assessment of specific body systems that relates to specific body problem the patient is facing currently. Both these types of assessments are performed using one of the basic techniques like inspection, auscultation, percussion, and palpation.

During focused assessment, a specific problem is examined. Depending on the problem, one or more body system may need to be assessed, and during this, the patient may complain of a specific sign or symptom that may need further examination. But during comprehensive health assessment, a healthcare provider is able to assess the overall condition of the patient and not a specific condition. Moreover, it is difficult to clinically judge a situation unless thorough focused assessment is done. The findings of focused and comprehensive assessment may vary since comprehensive assessment is based on multiple sources, whereas focused assessment is done on a specific issue.

Therefore, the findings of a focused assessment on each patient or a comprehensive health assessment may not be the same.