Nursing Intervention
ANSWERS
Nursing interventions are actions a nurse takes to implement their patient care plan, including any treatments, procedures, or teaching moments designed to improve the patient’s comfort and health.
These actions can range from as simple as adjusting the patient’s bed and sleeping position to as complex as psychotherapy and crisis counseling. While doctors order some nursing interventions, nurse practitioners can also develop orders based on evidence-based practice principles. Nursing interventions that are common include:
Bedside assistance and care
Medication administration
Food assistance
Vital signs and recovery progress are being tracked.
Nursing interventions are classified into three types based on the role of the healthcare professional who is involved in the patient’s care:
Independent: A nurse can perform independent interventions without the assistance of other medical personnel, such as routine nursing tasks such as vital sign checks.
Dependent: Some actions, such as prescribing a new medication, necessitate instructions or input from a doctor. A nurse cannot begin dependent interventions on her own.
Collaborative or interdependent interventions involve team members from various disciplines. In some cases, such as after surgery, the patient’s recovery plan may include prescription medication from a doctor, nursing feeding assistance, and treatment from a physical therapist or occupational therapist.
Assessments’ Function
The nursing assessment is the initial step in developing a nursing care plan. During the assessment process, physicians and nurses may ask questions and administer tests to learn more about a patient’s health and well-being. Professionals collect the following information from patients:
The vital signs
Physical ailment or concern
External physical conditions
Medical background
Current neurological performance
The nurse can use clinical judgment to develop a nursing diagnosis list after collecting all necessary information during the assessment process. The nurse can create a care plan outlining which interventions to include based on the assessment and diagnosis. For example, the nursing diagnosis list may conclude that the patient lacks appetite due to post-surgery pain. Based on this medical diagnosis, the nurse can set goals to relieve the patient’s pain by administering pain medication and assessing the patient’s pain levels every few hours.
QUESTION
Nursing Intervention
Identify one nursing intervention that does not require a doctor’s order for relief of acute or chronic pain. Describe the intervention and discuss any training or information a nurse would need to be able to use this intervention and how this type of intervention works to help relieve pain.