Comprehensive Child Care Assessment: Vital Signs, History & Planning

This report provides a comprehensive overview of child care assessment, emphasizing the importance of careful observation, physical assessment components, and family-centered care. It highlights the need to assess physical appearance, vital signs such as respiratory rate, heart rate, and body temperature, and to consider potential respiratory and cardiovascular complications in children. The report underscores the significance of gathering detailed health history from parents, including information about previous illnesses, immunizations, and the progression of current symptoms. It also stresses the value of family-centered care, encouraging healthcare professionals to actively engage parents in the care plan, respect their concerns, and provide them with necessary diagnostic information without overwhelming them. The ultimate goal is to empower parents to promote the health and well-being of their children effectively.

Running head: CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

1CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
Assessment component Rationale/s
Assessment approach and
communication:
1. Observe the child carefully prior to
any physical examination.
2. Try to get familiar with the child
before undertaking vital signs.
3. Communicate with the child’s
parents about the condition and
medical history.
4. Assess the following signs in the
child: physical appearance,
conscious level, and way of
interaction, sleepiness and sign of
agitation or restlessness.
5. Precaution of placing the child in
calm atmosphere need to be taken
for assessing.
1. According to Sampson, (2017) for
childcare it is important to observe
the child as lethargic or inactive
behaviour in child give information
about connected illness. For
example, runny nose or cough is
indicative to flu infection.
2. It will help assessing the child in
easy manner. By getting familiar,
nurse will get to know about the
child and examine the body
symptoms.
3. Parents gives all the required
information of the child health
condition related to history of child
delivery for example whether the
delivery was normal or was it
premature birth. Such information
helps the health care professional to
predict root cause of illness.
(Nilsson et al., 2015).
4. The physical sign give idea about

2CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
the level of infection and prevailing
condition.
5. Child with ill condition often tends
to be irritated or may become less
interactive with the surrounding.
Such sign are indicative to some
health issue like flu or respiratory
issue. Hence, disturbing the child
may make them uncontrollable
(Arvidsson et al., 2016).

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Components of physical
assessment:
1. Consider the appearance of the
child for observing: lethargic or
active, agitated or calm, tone is poor
or normal, movement and posture
of the child.
2. Take the following vital signs of the
child: respiratory rate, tracheal tug,
nostril flaring, depth of breathing
and check inspiratory noise and
level of oxygen saturation.
3. Monitor the heart rate and check for
cyanosis and capillary refills.
4. Monitor the body temperature of
the child
1. It is known that reviewing the child
for physical appearance give
information of the health status and
indication for some sort of infection
(de Schipper, Lieberman & Moody,
2017).
2. It is important to take vital sign as
children easily develop respiratory
issue, which can also affect the
heart and lead to cardiovascular
complication. The major reason
behind it is low immune system and
anatomical structure of respiratory
system. They have soft compliant
chest wall and ribs are horizontally
placed with poor develop intercostal
muscle. They easily catch infection
than adult as they have well
developed intercostal muscle and
protected by three layer of chest.
So, foreign particle cannot easily
enter the body through air.
Therefore, they develop respiratory

4CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
depression faster than adult does
(Praud & Redding, 2019).
3. Additionally the late symptoms of
tachypnea can lead to bradypnea as
stated by the Friedma and Nitu
(2018) where author has indicated
that it can happen because child is
unable to maintain own airway and
is fatigued.
1. In cough and cold, the rate of
respiration become low and child
face difficulty in breathing which
can lead to bradycardia (Furuichi et
al., 2016)
2. It is important to check circulatory
system of child because, in case of
respiratory depression lungs is not
able to transfer oxygen to entire
body. As children have immature
myocardium, heart is not able to
contract with force; hence, cardiac
output is low in them (Petersen et
al., 2018).

5CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
3. It is reported that child with cough
and running nose generally have
high body temperature which need
to be lowered by effective
medication. High body temperature
is an issue because, due to it the
enzyme cease to function and
disturb the body metabolism.
Hence, it is significant to bring the
body temperature to normal (Ward
& Hisley, 2015).

6CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
Family-Centred Care:
1. Give effort to listen to the parents
and encourage them to express their
feeling and concern.
2. In family centred care try to
actively engage the parents in
conversation.
3. Try to be respectful and humble
while communicating with the
parents.
4. Include them in the care plan and
gives all the diagnostic information
to the parents.
5. Do not overload the parents with
unnecessary information.
The major reason for family centred care is
the parents are the valuable resource for
information about the child. They gives all
the needed information about the child.
According to Shields (2015) it can be said
that parents are the primary source of
strength for child and they need to know
about the health status of the child. It is
evident that communicating with the
parents and making them aware about the
health care plan, can enhance their
confidence and trust in treatment process
(O'Connor, Brenner & Coyne, 2019).
The goal of family centred care is to make
the parents competent for the promoting
health and wellbeing of the child. It is
known from the study of Roué et al. (2017)
that by overloading the parent with
information, may not make them effective
in giving required care to the child.
Health history questions:
Following questions need to be asked from
parents.
1. According to the study of Abuel-
Reesh (2017) it was reported that
children with running nose and

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Question 1: about the serious illness
1. Does child have any medical
history related to respiratory
failure?
2. Have the child ever being
diagnosed with the neuromuscular
disorder, chronic lung disease of
prematurity, sign of asthma or
allergies?
Question 2 : about immunisation
3. Is the child have given all the
required immunisation till date?
Question 3: related to progress of disease.
4. Has the child shown present
symptoms before?
5. When did the child started to show
current symptoms?
6. What measures have been taken by
your end when the symptom arise?
7. Did the child needed to go to
hospital? Or was treated at home?
8. What was done for care of child?
9. Whether the care was effective
cough that sounds like seal, usually
have some complication with the
lungs and respiration system. The
author also highlighted that when
there is premature birth of child,
their lungs do not develop and
report to have chronic lung illness.
Supporting the finding Harris et al.
(2016) indicated that it is important
for the nurse to check for any
respiratory failure symptoms in
child in order for diagnosis and
treatment.
2. Immunisation is the important way
to protect the children from getting
infected by either bacteria or virus.
It is seen from the study of Gross et
al. (2015) vaccinisation is done to
increase the immune strength of the
child. They develop the ability to
fight with the infection. However, it
is also reported that children not
having immunisation develop

8CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT
enough? infection (McKee & Bohannon,
2016).
3. It is important to ask about the
progress of disease in order to know
about the illness and analyse it with
the current sign and symptom. It
will also help the health care
professional to plan better for the
child (Adams et al., 2016). It will
make the health professional aware
about the condition and treatment
plan by assessing the medical
history.

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