Techniques for Conducting Effective Nursing Health Assessment
Interviewing
Interviewing is one of the primary data collection techniques, which allows the nurse to gather subjective data like sensations or feelings, perceptions, wants, ideals and values, and personal information which can be provided only from the client. This data can be analyzed to discern physiologic, psychological, and societal problems. Interviews are usually followed by a clinical examination.
Clinical examination
Clinical examination objectifies the information received from the patient during the interview, and consists of several separate techniques. These include inspection, palpation percussion and auscultation.
Community Needs Assessment
Community Needs Assessment is a systematic process that involves nursing engagement with the community, determining the needs and wants of a community, as well as strengths and weaknesses of its facilities, for the purpose of determining the ways of decreasing the gap between current state of things and the desired conditions or wants.
Nursing Research Methods
Qualitative
Qualitative research evaluates, interprets and seeks to understand social interactions, identify patterns, themes and features, and is usually subjective.
Quantitative
Quantitative research seeks to test hypotheses, study cause and effect and make predictions based on numbers, facts, and statistics.
Conclusion
All of these data collection techniques and research methods have their uses in the workplace, and their effective application benefits both the medical staff and the patients. Effective use of these techniques and research methods would allow to create a complete image of the patients’ situations, determine their problems, and, consequently, help them get better through more effective, practiced service, based on accurate data.