Nursing Process
The nursing process is used to provide safe and effective care since it offers a systematic guide to patient-centered care through the five phases. The systematic guide is used to offer quality and holistic care to cancer patients. The first step involves assessment of the health condition including physiological, psychological, sociological and spiritual, economic and lifestyle factors (Pérez Rivas et al., 2016). The assessment helps in providing holistic and patient-focused care based on their needs such as the medical history of the cancer patient depending on the treatment they have received before. The second phase involves diagnosis which forms the clinical judgment of the potential health condition. For example, cancer patients require a diagnosis that will reveal the severity of cancer and determine the course of treatment. The next phase is the planning stage which involves developing a treatment plan (Shewangizaw & Mersha, 2015). The treatment plan determines the goals to be achieved based on the problems identified. For example, a treatment plan for cancer patients can involve chemotherapy for a specified period with the goal of killing the fast-growing cells.
The fourth phase is the implementation of the treatment plan including monitoring the patient for signs of improvement. It also involved educating cancer patients about the health management of their condition (Ghanbari, Monfared, Hoseinzadeh, Moaddab & Sedighi, 2017). For example, cancer patients require monitoring to check if the fast-growing cancer cells are reducing or increasing. Shewangizaw and Mersha (2015) state that the last phase is the evaluation stage which involves three outcomes which indicate if the condition has improved, stabilized or deteriorated. For example, the evaluation of a cancer patient may show that the condition has improved. However, if the condition deteriorates the nursing process will begin again from the first stage. Therefore, the nursing process is effective in providing patient-focused care to cancer patients.
References
Ghanbari, A., Monfared, A., Hoseinzadeh, T., Moaddab, F., & Sedighi, A. (2017). The impact of the nursing process education on critical thinking of nursing students. Research in Medical Education, 9(2), 33-25.
Pérez Rivas, F. J., Martín‐Iglesias, S., Pacheco del Cerro, J. L., Minguet Arenas, C., Garcia Lopez, M., & Beamud Lagos, M. (2016). Effectiveness of nursing process use in primary care. International Journal of Nursing Knowledge, 27(1), 43-48.
Shewangizaw, Z., & Mersha, A. (2015). Determinants towards the implementation of the nursing process. American Journal of Nursing Science, 4(3), 45-49.
