The Nursing Process: A
Comprehensive Guide
What is the Nursing Process?
The nursing process is defined as a systematic, rational method of
planning that guides all nursing actions in delivering holistic and
patient-focused care. The nursing process is a form of scientific
reasoning and requires the nurse’s critical thinking to provide the best
care possible to the client.
What is the purpose of the nursing
process?
The following are the purposes of the nursing process:
To identify the client’s health status and actual or potential
health care problems or needs (through assessment).
To establish plans to meet the identified needs.
To deliver specific nursing interventions to meet those needs.
To apply the best available caregiving evidence and promote
human functions and responses to health and illness (ANA, 2010).
, To protect nurses against legal problems related to nursing care
when the standards of the nursing process are followed correctly.
To help the nurse perform in a systematically organized way their
practice.
To establish a database about the client’s health status, health
concerns, response to illness, and the ability to manage health
care needs.
Characteristics of the nursing
process
The following are the unique characteristics of the nursing process:
Patient-centered. The unique approach of the nursing process
requires care respectful of and responsive to the individual
patient’s needs, preferences, and values. The nurse functions as
a patient advocate by keeping the patient’s right to practice
informed decision-making and maintaining patient-centered
engagement in the health care setting.
Interpersonal. The nursing process provides the basis for the
therapeutic process in which the nurse and patient respect each
other as individuals, both learning and growing due to the
interaction. It involves the interaction between the nurse and the
patient with a common goal.
Collaborative. The nursing process functions effectively in
nursing and inter-professional teams, promoting open
communication, mutual respect, and shared decision-making to
achieve quality patient care.
Dynamic and cyclical. The nursing process is a dynamic,
cyclical process in which each phase interacts with and is
influenced by the other phases.
Requires critical thinking. The use of the nursing process
requires critical thinking which is a vital skill required for nurses
in identifying client problems and implementing interventions to
promote effective care outcomes.
Nursing Process Steps
The nursing process consists of five steps: assessment, diagnosis,
planning, implementation, and evaluation. The acronym ADPIE is
an easy way to remember the components of the nursing process.
Nurses need to learn how to apply the process step-by-step. However,
as critical thinking develops through experience, they learn how to
move back and forth among the steps of the nursing process.
, The steps of the nursing process are not separate entities but
overlapping, continuing subprocesses. Apart from understanding
nursing diagnoses and their definitions, the nurse promotes awareness
of defining characteristics and behaviors of the diagnoses, related
factors to the selected nursing diagnoses, and the interventions suited
for treating the diagnoses.
The steps of the nursing process are detailed below:
1. Assessment: “What data is
collected?”
The first phase of the nursing process is assessment. It involves
collecting, organizing, validating, and documenting the clients’ health
status. This data can be obtained in a variety of ways. Usually, when
the nurse first encounters a patient, the nurse is expected to assess to
identify the patient’s health problems as well as the physiological,
psychological, and emotional state and to establish a database about
the client’s response to health concerns or illness and the ability to
manage health care needs. Critical thinking skills are essential to the
assessment, thus requiring concept-based curriculum changes.
Collecting Data
Data collection is the process of gathering information regarding a
client’s health status. The process must be systematic and continuous
in collecting data to prevent the omission of important information
concerning the client.
Types of Data
Data collected about a client generally falls into objective or subjective
categories, but data can also be verbal and nonverbal.
Objective Data or Signs
Objective data are overt, measurable, tangible data collected via the
senses, such as sight, touch, smell, or hearing, and compared to an
accepted standard, such as vital signs, intake and output, height and
weight, body temperature, pulse, and respiratory
Comprehensive Guide
What is the Nursing Process?
The nursing process is defined as a systematic, rational method of
planning that guides all nursing actions in delivering holistic and
patient-focused care. The nursing process is a form of scientific
reasoning and requires the nurse’s critical thinking to provide the best
care possible to the client.
What is the purpose of the nursing
process?
The following are the purposes of the nursing process:
To identify the client’s health status and actual or potential
health care problems or needs (through assessment).
To establish plans to meet the identified needs.
To deliver specific nursing interventions to meet those needs.
To apply the best available caregiving evidence and promote
human functions and responses to health and illness (ANA, 2010).
, To protect nurses against legal problems related to nursing care
when the standards of the nursing process are followed correctly.
To help the nurse perform in a systematically organized way their
practice.
To establish a database about the client’s health status, health
concerns, response to illness, and the ability to manage health
care needs.
Characteristics of the nursing
process
The following are the unique characteristics of the nursing process:
Patient-centered. The unique approach of the nursing process
requires care respectful of and responsive to the individual
patient’s needs, preferences, and values. The nurse functions as
a patient advocate by keeping the patient’s right to practice
informed decision-making and maintaining patient-centered
engagement in the health care setting.
Interpersonal. The nursing process provides the basis for the
therapeutic process in which the nurse and patient respect each
other as individuals, both learning and growing due to the
interaction. It involves the interaction between the nurse and the
patient with a common goal.
Collaborative. The nursing process functions effectively in
nursing and inter-professional teams, promoting open
communication, mutual respect, and shared decision-making to
achieve quality patient care.
Dynamic and cyclical. The nursing process is a dynamic,
cyclical process in which each phase interacts with and is
influenced by the other phases.
Requires critical thinking. The use of the nursing process
requires critical thinking which is a vital skill required for nurses
in identifying client problems and implementing interventions to
promote effective care outcomes.
Nursing Process Steps
The nursing process consists of five steps: assessment, diagnosis,
planning, implementation, and evaluation. The acronym ADPIE is
an easy way to remember the components of the nursing process.
Nurses need to learn how to apply the process step-by-step. However,
as critical thinking develops through experience, they learn how to
move back and forth among the steps of the nursing process.
, The steps of the nursing process are not separate entities but
overlapping, continuing subprocesses. Apart from understanding
nursing diagnoses and their definitions, the nurse promotes awareness
of defining characteristics and behaviors of the diagnoses, related
factors to the selected nursing diagnoses, and the interventions suited
for treating the diagnoses.
The steps of the nursing process are detailed below:
1. Assessment: “What data is
collected?”
The first phase of the nursing process is assessment. It involves
collecting, organizing, validating, and documenting the clients’ health
status. This data can be obtained in a variety of ways. Usually, when
the nurse first encounters a patient, the nurse is expected to assess to
identify the patient’s health problems as well as the physiological,
psychological, and emotional state and to establish a database about
the client’s response to health concerns or illness and the ability to
manage health care needs. Critical thinking skills are essential to the
assessment, thus requiring concept-based curriculum changes.
Collecting Data
Data collection is the process of gathering information regarding a
client’s health status. The process must be systematic and continuous
in collecting data to prevent the omission of important information
concerning the client.
Types of Data
Data collected about a client generally falls into objective or subjective
categories, but data can also be verbal and nonverbal.
Objective Data or Signs
Objective data are overt, measurable, tangible data collected via the
senses, such as sight, touch, smell, or hearing, and compared to an
accepted standard, such as vital signs, intake and output, height and
weight, body temperature, pulse, and respiratory
