Making Sense of the Whole
Since the Law of Familiarity states that visual elements are more likely to be perceived as related if the way they are grouped is familiar (Lal, 2008), the nursing process was used to guide students in extracting all the relevant information from the case study. Based on an understanding of the nursing process, information that initially may seem unrelated can be organized into a multidimensional picture of the patient. The students were asked to record the following patient information in the concept map:
- Assessments (What is the patient history?, What is the assessment data including labs and diagnostics?)
- Diagnoses (What are all the appropriate nursing diagnoses including risk for?)
- Planning/ Interventions (What interventions are implemented or should be implemented? What assessments are needed? What medications were given and what are the nursing considerations? What medications, treatments, or diagnostics are anticipated?)
- Evaluation and Expected Outcomes (How do you know if the intervention/medication/treatment is working? Was it effective? In what time frame should evaluation occur?)