Question

Case Study: Irritable Infants Note: Since this is your first foundational nursing class, this case study deals with an everyday, common situation - babysitting. This scenario was deliberately chosen since many of you may not have experience in hospital settings. The goal of this case is to learn how to apply the nursing process and sound reasoning to a low-pressure "patient" scenario, not to grade the correctness of your answers. Case: You are babysitting twin 9-month old siblings; you have been caring for them for approximately 3 hours when they both gradually become irritable. This then transitions to non-stop crying over the span of 30 minutes. Based on your current knowledge and introduction to the nursing process, please address: 1. Which assessment technique you would employ to assist in determining the situation (comprehensive, problem-oriented, or focused) 2. Identify what assessment data are pertinent and what critical thinking measures you took to arrive at these conclusions. 3. Hypothesize a nursing diagnosis (or medical or collaborative) and support 4. Identify one goal and one expected outcome for this situation. 5. Describe the best communication technique that you would use with these two infants to illustrate caring and patient- centered care.

Answer 1

1. The assessment technique employed to assist in determining the situation is problem-oriented.

2. a) Pertinent assessment data:

• Nine-month-old twin Infants
• Strong non-stop cry for the past 30 minutes.
• Irritable.

b) Critical thinking measures to arrive at the conclusion: Analytical, open-minded, and problem-solving.

3. Nursing diagnosis:

• Impaired sleep pattern as evidenced by nonstop crying and irritability. For 9-month-old infants being irritable for 3 hours with nonstop crying for 30 minutes means, they have impaired sleep patterns.
• Impaired feeding as evidenced by nonstop crying and irritability. For 9-month-old infants being irritable for 3 hours with nonstop crying for 30 minutes points to the fact that they had insufficient or improper feeding.

4. One goal and one expected outcome:

• The goal is to stop crying.
• The expected outcome is successfully putting them to sleep and stopping cry.

5. The best communication technique used to communicate with the infants to illustrate caring and patient-centered care is by making sounds to get their attention by using a rattle first, talking to them, and then making them listen to some music.