Basic Nursing: Essentials for Practice

This user-friendly textbook provides complete coverage of the essential nursing principles, concepts, and skills that are the foundation of a solid nursing education. The 6th edition features enhanced readability, an engaging format, and a new Companion CD. It consistently follows the 5-step nursing process framework with a strong focus on critical thinking that provides readers with a solid base for clinicals. As readers follow case studies through each clinical chapter, concrete examples illustrate how to address cultural diversity, teaching, assessment, evidence-based practice, and much more.

• The 5-step nursing process provides a consistent framework for clinical chapters
• Continuing Case Studies provide rich, realistic, ongoing examples of how to apply the nursing process and think critically by introducing a client and a nurse in each clinical chapter and following their interactions for each step of the nursing process
• Synthesis in Practice boxes demonstrate how the nurse in the chapter Case Study uses the various components of critical thinking to plan care for the patient
• Skills are presented in an easy-to-use 2-column format that includes rationales for each step and clearly explains both how and why nursing skills are performed
• Care Plans, based on the chapter Case Study, demonstrate the application of the 5-step nursing process to individual patient problems to help readers understand how a plan is developed and how to evaluate care
• Unexpected Outcomes and Related Interventions are listed for each skill and alert readers to possible problems and appropriate nursing actions
• Care of the Older Adult boxes highlight key aspects of nursing assessment and care for this population
• Procedural Guidelines boxes provide streamlined, step-by-step instructions for performing basic skills
• Key Concepts neatly summarize the most important content for each chapter

• A Companion CD, included with every text, provides outstanding resources such as video clips, a searchable audio glossary, a Spanish/English audio glossary, Butterfield's Fluids & Electrolytes Tutorial, and NCLEX®-examination-style review questions
• UNIQUE! Using Evidence in Practice boxes summarize the results of important research studies and implications for nursing practice
• A new chapter ― Community Based Nursing Practice ― explores the characteristics of patients from vulnerable populations that influence a nurse's approach to assessment and care
• UNIQUE! Focused Patient Assessment boxes, tied to the chapter Case Study, include factors to assess, questions to ask, and physical assessment strategies to help readers learn how to effectively phrase questions during patient assessment
• Patient Teaching boxes, tied to the chapter Case Study, include an outcome statement, teaching strategies, and notes on how to evaluate learning
• Cultural Focus boxes, tied to the chapter Case Study, summarize important cultural considerations as they relate to case studies and chapter topics
• UNIQUE! Critical Thinking in Practice sections at the end of each chapter challenge readers to apply what they've learned to realistic case studies
• NCLEX®- examination-style review questions are featured at the end of each chapter and include new alternate-item format questions.
• UNIQUE! An ESL/Readability specialist edited the text to improve readability and comprehension for lower level learners and ESL students
• Delegation coverage indicates which skills can be delegated and what instructions to provide
• The Safety chapter features expanded disaster management coverage for both natural and bioterrorism disasters.
• NOC outcomes and NIC interventions are incorporated in Care Plans to reflect the standard used by institutions nationwide
• Key terms are now located at the beginning of each chapter and include page references where definitions can be found

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.