NUR 310 FINAL Exam Study Guide Complete
Critical Thinking, Clinical Reasoning, and the Nursing Process
1. Define the concept of critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and the nursing process
• Critical thinking: An intentional higher-level reasoning process that is intellectually delineate...
• critical thinking an intentional higher level reasoning process that is intellectually delineated by ones worldview
and experience with skills
and standards as a guide for r
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NUR 310 FINAL Exam Study Guide Complete
Critical Thinking, Clinical Reasoning, and the Nursing Process
1. Define the concept of critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and the nursing process
• Critical thinking: An intentional higher-level reasoning process that is intellectually delineated
by ones worldview, knowledge, and experience with skills, attitudes, and standards as a guide
for rational judgment and action
• Clinical Reasoning: Mental process analyzing all the elements of a clinical situation and making
a decision based on that analysis; way of thinking
• Nursing process: The traditional critical thinking competency that allows nurses to make clinical
judgments (thinking strategies) and take actions based on reason; It is a cognitive process that
uses thinking strategies; It is a systematic method of planning and providing care to clients
2. Discuss the attitudes and skills needed to develop critical thinking and clinical reasoning
• Critical analysis: Application of a set of questions to a particular situation to discard
unimportant ideas
• Socratic questioning: Technique to search for inconsistencies, examine multiple points of
view, separate the known from beliefs
• Inductive reasoning: Builds from specific ideas or actions to make conclusions about a general idea
• Deductive reasoning: Looking at a general idea as a whole and then considering more
specific actions or ideas
3. Describe the phases of the nursing process and how they interrelate
• ADPIE
⟶ Key points: systematic, collaborative, client-centered, outcome oriented, individualized,
cyclic, dynamic, requires critical thinking, universally applicable
⟶ Purpose: identify client’s health status and actual or potential health care problems or
needs, establish plans to meet needs, deliver specific interventions
4. Identify the purpose of each phase of the nursing process
• Assessment: collect data, organize data, validate data, document data
⟶ Communication: determine impairments or barriers; verbal vs. nonverbal
• Diagnosis: analyze data, identify health problems/risks/strengths, formulate diagnostic statements
• Planning: prioritize problems, formulate goals/desired outcomes, select nursing interventions,
write nursing interventions
• Implementation: reassessing the client, determining the nurse’s need for assistance,
implementing the nursing interventions, supervising the delegated care, documenting nursing
activities
• Evaluation: collecting data related to desired outcomes, comparing data with desired
outcomes, relating nursing activities to outcomes, drawing conclusions about problem status,
continuing/modifying/terminating nursing care plan
5. Identify the four major activities associated with the assessing phase
• Collecting data: gathering information about a client’s health status
• Validating data: verifying data to make sure it is accurate and factual
• Organizing data: categorizing data systematically using a specified format
• Documentation: accurately and factually recording and reporting data
6. Differentiate objective and subjective data and primary and secondary data
• Objective data: signs; detectible by an observer, can be measured or tested against an
acceptable standard, obtained through observation or physical examination
• Subjective data: symptoms; apparent to and can be described only by the person affected;
,includes sensations, feelings, values, beliefs, attitudes, and perception of personal health status
and life situations
, • Primary data: information from the client; objective or subjective
• Secondary data: information from family, friends, or the health team about the client
7. Identify three methods of data collection and give examples of how each is useful
• Observing
• Interviewing
• Examining
8. Differentiate various types of nursing diagnoses and how they differ from medical diagnoses
• Actual Nursing diagnosis/problem: problem exists & is present at time of nursing assessment;
based on presence of associated signs and symptoms
• Risk Nursing diagnosis/problem: Problem does not exist; potential problem based on presence
of risk factors that is likely to develop unless nurse intervenes
• Possible Nursing diagnosis/problem: Evidence is incomplete or unclear; insufficient data to
support or refute problem or etiology
• Wellness or Health Nursing diagnosis/problem: Desire to attain a higher level of wellness;
a readiness for enhancement
9. Identify the basic steps in the diagnostic process
• Interpreting & analyzing data: comparing data with standards, clustering of clues
• Determining client’s strengths, risks, and problems: resources and abilities to cope, problems
that support tentative, actual, possible diagnosis
• Formulating nursing diagnoses/problems: problem, etiology, joined by the words, “related to”
10. Identify activities that occur in the planning process
• Individualize care that maximizes outcome achievement
• Set priorities
• Facilitate communication among nursing personnel and colleagues
• Promote continuity of high-quality, cost-effective care
• Coordinate care
• Evaluate patient response to nursing care
• Create a record used for evaluation, research, reimbursement, and legal reasons
• Promote nurse’s professional development
11. Identify factors that the nurse must consider when setting priorities
• Urgency of the health problem
⟶ High priority: airway, breathing, circulation
⟶ Medium priority: health threatening
⟶ Low priority: developmental needs, not specifically related to a current health problem
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs
• Patient preference
• Anticipation of future problems
12. Identify guidelines for writing goals/desired outcomes
• Action, condition, and time element
13. Describe the process of selecting and choosing nursing interventions
• SMART
⟶ Specific
⟶ Measurable
⟶ Attainable
⟶ Realistic
⟶ Time-oriented
• Six factors:
⟶ Characteristics of nursing ⟶ Goals and expected outcomes
diagnosis ⟶ Evidence base for interventions
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