Test Bank for Brunner and Suddarth’s Canadian Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing 4th Edition Hussein
Chapter 1 Health Care Delivery and Nursing Practice
The public health nurse is presenting a health promotion class to a group of new mothers.
How should the nurse best define health?
Health is being disease-free.
Health is having fulfillment in all domains of life.
Health is having psychological and physiological harmony.
Health is being connected in body, mind, and spirit.
Ans: D
Feedback:
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health in the preamble to its constitution
as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence
of disease and infirmity. The other answers are incorrect because they are not congruent
with the WHO definition of health.
A nurse is speaking to a group of prospective nursing students about what it is like to be a
nurse. What is one characteristic the nurse would cite as necessary to possess to be an
effective nurse?
Sensitivity to cultural differences
Team-focused approach to problem-solving
Strict adherence to routine
Ability to face criticism
Ans: A
Feedback:
To promote an effective nurse-patient relationship and positive outcomes of care, nursing
care must be culturally competent, appropriate, and sensitive to cultural differences.
Team-focused nursing and strict adherence to routine are not characteristics needed to be
an effective nurse. The ability to handle criticism is important, but to a lesser degree than
cultural competence.
With increases in longevity, people have had to become more knowledgeable about their
health and the professional health care that they receive. One outcome of this
phenomenon is the development of organized self-care education programs. Which of
the following do these programs prioritize?
Adequate prenatal care
Government advocacy and lobbying
Judicious use of online communities
Management of illness
Ans: D
Feedback:
Organized self-care education programs emphasize health promotion, disease prevention,
management of illness, self-care, and judicious use of the professional health care
system. Prenatal care, lobbying, and Internet activities are secondary.
The home health nurse is assisting a patient and his family in planning the patients returnto
work after surgery and the development of postsurgical complications. The nurse is
preparing a plan of care that addresses the patients multifaceted needs. To which level of
Maslows hierarchy of basic needs does the patients need for self-fulfillment relate?
Physiologic
Transcendence
Love and belonging
Self-actualization
Ans: D
Feedback:
Maslows highest level of human needs is self-actualization, which includes selffulfillment, desire to know and understand, and aesthetic needs. The other answers are
incorrect because self-fulfillment does not relate directly to them.
The view that health and illness are not static states but that they exist on a continuum is
central to professional health care systems. When planning care, this view aids the nurse
in appreciating which of the following?
Care should focus primarily on the treatment of disease.
A persons state of health is ever-changing.
A person can transition from health to illness rapidly.
Care should focus on the patients compliance with interventions.
Ans: B
Feedback:
By viewing health and illness on a continuum, it is possible to consider a person as being
neither completely healthy nor completely ill. Instead, a persons state of health is everchanging and has the potential to range from high-level wellness to extremely poor
health and imminent death. The other answers are incorrect because patient care should
not focus just on the treatment of disease. Rapid declines in health and compliance with
treatment are not key to this view of health.
A group of nursing students are participating in a community health clinic. When
providing care in this context, what should the students teach participants about disease
prevention?
It is best achieved through attending self-help groups.
It is best achieved by reducing psychological stress.
It is best achieved by being an active participant in the community.
It is best achieved by exhibiting behaviors that promote health.
Ans: D
Feedback:
Today, increasing emphasis is placed on health, health promotion, wellness, and selfcare. Health is seen as resulting from a lifestyle oriented toward wellness. Nurses in
community health clinics do not teach that disease prevention is best achieved through
attending self-help groups, by reducing stress, or by being an active participant in the
community, though each of these activities is consistent with a healthy lifestyle.
A nurse on a medical-surgical unit has asked to represent the unit on the hospitals quality
committee. When describing quality improvement programs to nursing colleagues and
members of other health disciplines, what characteristic should the nurse cite?
These programs establish consequences for health care professionals actions.
These programs focus on the processes used to provide care.
These programs identify specific incidents related to quality.
These programs seek to justify health care costs and systems.Ans:
B
Feedback:
Numerous models seek to improve the quality of health care delivery. A commonality
among them is a focus on the processes that are used to provide care. Consequences, a
focus on incidents, and justification for health care costs are not universal characteristics
of quality improvement efforts.
Nurses in acute care settings must work with other health care team members to maintain
quality care while facing pressures to care for patients who are hospitalized for shorter
periods of time than in the past. To ensure positive health outcomes when patients return
to their homes, what action should the nurse prioritize?
Promotion of health literacy during hospitalization
Close communication with insurers
Thorough and evidence-based discharge planning
Participation in continuing education initiatives
Ans: C
Feedback:
Following discharges that occur after increasingly short hospital stays, nurses in the
community care for patients who need high-technology acute care services as well as
long-term care in the home. This is dependent on effective discharge planning to a
greater degree than continuing education, communication with insurers, or promotion of
health literacy.
You are admitting a patient to your medical unit after the patient has been transferred
from the emergency department. What is your priority nursing action at this time?
Identifying the immediate needs of the patient
Checking the admitting physicians orders
Obtaining a baseline set of vital signs
Allowing the family to be with the patient
Ans: A
