Basic Nursing: Essentials for Practice

Basic Nursing provides complete coverage of nursing fundamentals in a concise, visually attractive format. Offering the basic principles, concepts, and skills needed by nursing students, it features a consistent and logical organization, with a clear writing style and numerous learning aids. Building on the strengths of the fourth edition, this revision has been thoroughly updated and revised to provide a more focused and engaging presentation.

• Five-Step Nursing Process provides a consistent organizational framework.
• More than 40 nursing skills are presented in a clear, 2-column format with rationales for all steps.
• Procedural Guidelines boxes provide streamlined step-by-step instructions for performing basic skills.
• Growth and Development chapter and age-related considerations throughout clinical chapters help prepare students to care for clients of all ages.
• Sample Nursing Care Plans highlight defining characteristics in assessment data, include client goals and expected outcomes in the planning section, and provide rationales for each nursing intervention.
• Progressive Case Studies follow the interactions of a client and nurse throughout the chapter to illustrate steps in the nursing process and develop critical thinking skills.

Implementation is organized into health promotion, acute care, and restorative and continuing care to address nursing practice in diverse settings.
Complete coverage of Growth and Development and age-related considerations in clinical chapters help prepare students to care for clients of all ages.
Gerontologic Nursing Principles are addressed in special boxes throughout the text to guide in caring for older adults.
Sample Nursing Care Plans highlight defining characteristics in assessment data.
Continuing Case Studies provide ongoing examples of the application of the nursing process and critical thinking by introducing a client and nurse in each clinical chapter and following their interactions through the steps of the nursing process.
Cultural Diversity is presented in a separate chapter and stressed in clinical examples throughout the text.
The Critical Thinking and Nursing Judgment chapter explains the components of critical thinking and describes how students can incorporate them into caregiving.
Client teaching is presented in a separate chapter and highlighted in boxes for clinical topics throughout the text.

Patricia A. Potter, RN, MSN, PhD, FAAN is a Former Director of Research, Patient Care Services Barnes-Jewish Hospital St. Louis, Missouri.

Anne Griffin Perry, RN, MSN, EdD, FAAN is a Professor Emerita, School of Nursing, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Illinois.