Assessment Framework

For nursing, assessment frameworks need to be broad enough to yield data to guide nursing care for health promotion, health protection (primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention), and health restoration. “Health promotion is directed toward increasing the level of well being or self actualization of a given individual or group. Health promotion focuses on efforts to approach or move toward a positive balanced state of high level health and well being” (Pander et al., 2006). An example of health promotion diagnosis is Readiness for Enhanced Sleep. Health protection is a process of helping people to reduce risks to health and protect themselves from existing risk states (Pander et al., 2006). An example of health protection diagnosis is Risk for Infection. Health restoration, also referred to as illness management, is a process of helping people to manage health problems. The actual nursing diagnoses such as Pain, Anxiety, Fear, and Ineffective Self Health management are examples of diagnoses in the realm of health restoration.

A nursing assessment framework that is widely used to generate accurate nursing diagnoses is the functional health pattern framework (Gordon, 2007). This framework includes 11 patterns of individuals, families, or communities.

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 Assessment, Clinical Judgment, and Nursing Diagnoses

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Diagnostic Reasoning Associated with Nursing assessment

Recognizing the Existence of Cues

Mentally Generating Possible Diagnoses

Comparing Cues to Possible Diagnoses

Conducting a Focused Data Collection