Health Assessment in Nursing: Components, Purpose, and Examples

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The Student’s Name: Radhika Chand
Essay Title: Health Assessment in Nursing
Word Count: 1200 words
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When a person is ill and goes to a health acre facility, there need to be a care plan on
how his or her specific needs will be attended to. The evaluation ranges from physical
examination to the health history of the patient (Weber & Kelley, 2013). This study will
explore the meaning of term health assessment providing its major components, and its
purpose from a nursing point of view and with examples. Lastly, it will briefly discuss the
plan of care for a child in a school setting and an elderly lady with dementia in a family
setting.
A health assessment is a care plan that outlines the particular needs of a patient and
how to go about the specific needs by the skilled nursing or healthcare facility or system
(Toney-Butler & Whitten, 2018). Gimenes, Reis, da Silva, de Camargo Silva, and Atila
(2016) explain that a health assessment is subdivided into three categories which are general
survey, health interview and physical examination. When nurses do the health assessments,
they aim at collecting subjective and objective data. Gimenes et al. (2016) state that,
subjective data is basically information analyzed from a patient’s perspective while objective
data is information identified, measured and observed comparing it with a specific and
accepted standard. The first component of a health assessment is the general survey whereby
the nurse’s initial impression is marked regarding the health status of a patient. This step
determines the health status of a patient; ill or in good health, by observing briefly the general
body appearance like the facial outlook, skin texture and condition, the sexual development
age-wise, body structure (deformities, weight or height), behavior (speech and facial
expression) and even mobility. The patient is not aware of these observations (Gimenes et al.,
2016). The next phase is conducting a health interview that collects the patient’s health
history. The examiner looks at the history of the patient with certain disorders, injury, and
discomfort and their reoccurrence (Wu, & Orlando, 2015). Sometimes a family member or a
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parent is involved. The last component is the physical examination that involves these sub
components Inspection involves the nurse looking at specific areas of the patient’s body like
colour, shape and consistency (Weber & Kelley, 2013). Palpation is the next phase whereby
the nurse or the health provider uses his or her hands (finger pads, palmar surface and the
dorsal surface of the hands) to feel aberrations during health assessment. (Weber & Kelley,
2013). Percussion follows and involves, tapping body parts to produce sound waves. From
the waves or vibrations the examiner can assess underlying structures like chest walls,
abdomen or back amongst others. The examiner is able to determine fluid in the chest cavity
or mass within the stomach to inform further diagnosis (Weber & Kelley, 2013). The last
component is auscultation and involves the use of a stethoscope. In this component, the
examiner listens to the patient’s heart, lungs, neck or abdomen to identify problems through
sound amplification (Petersen, 2016).
The Purpose of a Health Assessment in nursing is primarily systematic data
collection. From the data collected, the treatment plan is informed. Heath assessment despite
being identified as a data collection method is more than just collecting information about the
health status of a patient. Assessments serve the purpose of also analyzing and synthesizing
the gathered information continuously from one component to the other (Weber & Kelley,
2013). One observation from an inspection may inform a palpation practice or an auscultation
practice. When synthesizing the data, the nurse is able to make judgments about how
effective a nursing intervention will be and evaluate the possible outcomes. A patient health
history and physical examination are important factor to inform nursing intervention.
According to Weber & Kelley (2013), the purpose of nursing health history assessment is
different from medical examinations like physical therapy or dietary assessments. The
nursing health assessment is used to collect all-inclusive idiosyncratic and impartial
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