Fundamentals of Nursing

Build the knowledge, clinical judgment, and practical confidence needed for safe, compassionate, and professional nursing care.

Fundamentals of Nursing: Principles, Clinical Skills, and Professional Patient Care is a comprehensive textbook created to give nursing and health science learners a strong foundation for modern clinical practice. It combines essential nursing theory with practical patient-care principles, helping readers understand not only what nurses do, but why each assessment, decision, and intervention matters.

Organized into 5 Parts and 25 comprehensive chapters, the book progresses from the foundations of professional nursing to communication, assessment, patient safety, essential clinical skills, therapeutic interventions, holistic care, leadership, community health, and quality improvement.

Rather than encouraging simple memorization, this textbook emphasizes clinical reasoning, safe decision-making, patient-centred care, professional accountability, and the ability to recognize and respond appropriately to changing patient needs.

Inside This Textbook, You Will Explore:

• Professional Nursing Foundations: The nature and scope of nursing, professional identity, nursing theories, ethical responsibilities, legal principles, regulation, accountability, evidence-based practice, research, and lifelong learning.

• Communication, Clinical Judgment, and Assessment: Therapeutic relationships, cultural and spiritual care, critical thinking, prioritization, decision-making, the nursing process, care planning, health history, and comprehensive patient assessment.

• Patient Safety and Essential Clinical Skills: Vital signs, pain assessment, recognition of clinical deterioration, infection prevention, aseptic practice, hygiene, comfort, sleep, mobility, positioning, and prevention of complications.

• Medication, Wound, and Physiological Care: Medication administration and safety, skin integrity, pressure-injury prevention, wound care, oxygenation, circulation, perfusion, fluid and electrolyte balance, acid–base concepts, and intravenous therapy.

• Leadership, Community, and Modern Nursing Practice: Family and population-focused nursing, care coordination, delegation, leadership, management, informatics, technology, quality improvement, and patient-safety systems.

More Than a Traditional Nursing Textbook

To strengthen understanding and help learners apply knowledge in realistic situations, the book includes:

• Clinical reference tables and practical safety guidance
• Multiple-choice and short-answer questions
• Case-based and clinical judgment exercises
• Assessment frameworks, appendices, glossary, and detailed index

Who Is This Book For?

This textbook is especially useful for:

• Nursing students and student nurses
• Undergraduate health science and allied health learners
• Early-career nursing professionals and learners reviewing core nursing knowledge.
• Nursing educators and instructors

Whether you are beginning your nursing education, preparing for clinical practice, or strengthening your understanding of essential patient care, Fundamentals of Nursing provides a clear pathway from foundational knowledge to confident, responsible, and patient-centred nursing practice.

Learn the principles. Strengthen your clinical judgment. Build the foundation for safer and more effective nursing care.