As the school nurse working in a college health clinic, you see many opportunities to promote health.
Maria is a 40-year-old Hispanic who is in her second year of nursing school. She complains of a 14-pound
weight gain since starting school and is afraid of what this will do to both her appearance and health if
the trend continues. After conducting her history, you learn that she is an excellent cook and she and her
family love to eat foods that reflect their Hispanic heritage. She is married with two school-age children.
She attends class a total of 15 hours per week, plus she must be present for 12 hours of labs and clinical.
She maintains the household essentially by herself and does all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and
chauffeuring of the children. She states that she is lucky to get 6 hours of sleep per night, but that is okay
with her. She lives 1 hour from campus and commutes each day. Using Healthy People 2020 and your
text as a guide, answer the following questions.
1. What additional information would you like to gather from Maria? Additional health history,
family hs, physical activity, any drug/ alcohol/ tobacco
2. What are Maria's real and potential health risks? Diabetes, lack of exercise, lack of sleep
Maria’s real health risks are lack of sleep, lack of exercise, exhaustion, stress. Potential health
risks are: diabetes, cardiovascular disease.
3. Why is Maria's culture important when obtaining the health assessment?
Maria’s culture is pertinent to the health assessment because it influence her decisions
regarding the choices she makes about her diet and lifestyle in particular related to exercise and
nutrition.
4. Pick one of Maria's health risks. What would be one reasonable short-term goal for this risk?
Risk assessment consist of …
Ineffective health maintenance
5. What nursing interventions would you incorporate into Maria's plan of care to assist her with
meeting your chosen goal? Please provide rationale for your selections..
Professor and Class,
From the presented case study the following data is collected: 40-year-old Hispanic, 14-pound
weight gain=poor nutritional choice plus lack of exercise, nursing school = stress, Hispanic
heritage=some increased health risks, maintains the household alone = to stress, lack of sleep,
long commute = sedentary lifestyle.
According to Jarvis (2016) “an individual's health status is influenced by a constellation of
personal, social, economic, and environmental factors, collectively known as the Determinants of
Health” (p. 13).
My health assessment will start by collecting subjective and objective data: performing a
complete health assessment and obtaining additional health information regarding present and