Find the full lesson here: https://academy.nursing.com/lesson/nursing-care-plan-ncp-for-abdominal-pain/

 

First, we’re going to collect our data. Remember, our data is just our assessment, so subjective from the patient and objective from the nurse. A patient with abdominal pain, that’s having symptoms, the subjective data for this patient is likely going to be the pain, maybe they have a decreased appetite, and how about some nausea? Those kinds of things are going to be all their subjective data. 

 

For objective data, maybe they feel really restless. This is what the nurse is observing. Let’s say we see on this patient, that the patient is having some guarding of the abdomen. Maybe some rebound tenderness when they’re pushed down. Maybe we see, or assess the patient and realize they’re constipated or have constant vomiting or diarrhea. These kinds of things will be our objective data. 

 

My hypothetical patient for our care plan will say that they’re having abdominal pain and it’s from excessive vomiting. We have to analyze the information. This is going to help us to diagnose and prioritize. So what is the problem? Well, the problem is the pain and the problem is that they are having some excessive vomiting. So, what needs to be improved? What can we do to improve or what needs to be improved to help the patient, is going to be the pain, right, but more than that, we need to, for this patient, we need to fix the vomiting, so that can help fix the pain. What is our priority? So, our priority is going to be to stop the vomiting and to help that abdomen just not be so tender right, so stop that vomiting, which is going to help with the pain for this patient and relieve that pain.