Vital Notes for Nurses: Principles of Care is an essential guide for nursing students and newly qualified nurses. It provides a concise introduction to the essential principles of nursing care. It encourages nurses to examine the principles and evidence underlying nursing practice and equips them with a thorough understanding of the complexities of patient care in different environments of care.
Principles of Care explores concepts of health and illness, conceptual frameworks for practice, principles of health care delivery, and professional standards. Key themes include assessment and planning, implementation and evaluation, patient education and health promotion, decision making and risk management, benchmarking, clinical effectiveness and practice development.
* Examines assessment, planning and evaluation of care
* Covers risk management and prioritisation of care
* Addresses the use of NICE guidance and National service frameworks
* Explores clinical effectiveness, practice development and quality assurance
* Includes learning objectives, scenarios and case studies
About the authors ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xii
Section 1 Principles of Health and Illness
1 Concepts of Health 3
Introduction 3
Health and illness 3
Models of health behaviour 8
Responses to illness or the threat of illness 11
References 13
2 Behaviour in Health and Illness 15
Introduction 15
Health behaviour 16
Illness behaviour 16
Psychological perspectives 19
Cultural perspectives 21
Behaviour and beliefs in health and illness 23
References 25
3 Nursing Theories and Nursing Models 27
Introduction 27
Nursing theory 28
Nursing models 32
Nursing theorists 33
References 38
4 Principles of the Nursing Process 40
Introduction 40
Stages of the nursing process 41
The nursing process and nursing models 48
References 55
Section 2 Principles of Nursing Practice
5 Essence of Care and Individualised Nursing 59
Introduction 59
Essence of Care 59
Benchmarking 61
The organisation of nursing care 64
References 69
6 Principles of Communication 72
Introduction 72
Patient participation 73
Communication 74
Securing consent 79
Ethics 82
Patient advocacy 82
References 83
7 Developing Therapeutic Relationships 85
Introduction 85
Therapeutic relationships 86
Challenges 91
Counselling 92
Defence mechanisms 93
References 94
8 Patient Education and Health Promotion 96
Introduction 96
Patient education 96
Health promotion 100
References 104
Section 3 Principles of Health Care Delivery
9 Multi-disciplinary Working 109
Introduction 109
Multi-disciplinary working 109
Integrated care pathways 113
Patient journey 116
References 118
10 Decision Making 120
Introduction 120
What is decision making? 121
Decision making in nursing 122
Risks in decision making 122
Decision making theory 123
Factors affecting decision making in practice 127
References 130
11 Evidence-based Practice 133
Introduction 133
What is evidence-based practice? 134
Definitions of evidence-based practice 134
Why should practice be evidence-based? 135
What is evidence? 136
Finding-appraising-applying evidence 140
Barriers to achieving evidence-based practice in nursing 146
Resources to aid the implementation of evidence-based practice 147
Evaluating a change to practice 148
References 149
12 Environments of Care 151
Introduction 151
The need for changes to service delivery in health care 152
Environments of care 153
User involvement in health care 155
Patient choice 157
References 159
Section 4 Principles of Professional Issues
13 Modernisation and Role Development 165
Introduction 165
Modernisation 165
New initiatives 168
New roles and new skills for nurses 171
Regulation 177
References 178
14 Frameworks for Best Practice 180
Introduction 180
Clinical governance 181
Models of clinical governance 182
Implementing clinical governance 187
Support for the implementation of clinical governance 190
The cyclical nature of clinical governance: measuring performance 193
References 195
15 Practice Development and Clinical Effectiveness 198
Introduction 198
Change 199
Change theory 200
Practice development and clinical effectiveness 201
Practice development 201
Clinical effectiveness 206
Outcomes 209
References 210
16 Scope of Professional Practice 212
Introduction 212
The development of the nursing profession 213
Scope of practice and professional standards 214
Knowledge for practice 216
Professional regulation 222
The future 225
References 226
Index 230
