Registered Nurses´ Association of Ontario
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Identifying Concerns/Needs: Core Processes of Client Centred Care
- Initiate discussion or strategies (i.e. focus groups and surveys) in order to understand the client’s perspective regarding his/her health and quality of life. Nurses may ask:
- What is this situation like for you?
- What is most important to you?
- What are your goals?
- What does quality of life mean for you?
- How involved do you want to be?
- What would you like to know about?
- What gives you strength to carry on?
- What has worked for you before?
- Who in your family or friends would help you?
- How will you know that you will be able to manage on your own?
- Seek to clarify the hopes, wishes, preferences, strengths, needs, and concerns of the client, from his/her perspective. Nurses may ask:
- What do you hope happens?
- What do you see down the road?
- What are your concerns?
- What do you need/expect from your health care team?
- Seek to build the client’s capacity (ability to reach independence) based on the client’s goals.
- Clarify the client’s wishes and follow his/her lead in determining the involvement of others in their health care. Nurses may ask:
- Who do you want to involve in your care?
- Who else should be involved in this meeting/project?
- What is important to you?
- Who would you like to make decisions for you, if you were unable to make them for yourself?
- Represent the client’s/community’s perspective of health, goals in life, as well as their concerns when making recommendations to others (i.e. the health care team, project team, community group, etc).
- Follow the client’s lead when providing information or teaching that the client wants with respect to his/her health/illness situation. Teach the client in a way that is relevant to his/her personal reality. This is based on the premise that the nurse trusts that clients will seek relevant information according to their own readiness.
- Document the client’s/community’s perspective with regard to health and quality of life, goals, wishes, choices regarding information, and concerns.
