RNSG 1413 - FOUNDATIONS OF NURSING PRACTICE
Course Description:
This course focuses on the introduction to the role of the professional nurse as a provider of
patient-centered care, patient safety advocate, member of health care team, and member of
profession. Content includes but is not limited to the fundamental concepts of nursing practice,
history of professional nursing, a systematic framework for decision-making and critical thinking,
and basic psychomotor skills. The mechanisms of disease and the needs and problems that can
arise are discussed and how the nursing process helps manage the patient through these issues.
Emphasis is on knowledge, judgment, skill performance, and professional values within a
legal/ethical framework.
Prerequisites: BIOL 2304, BIOL 2101, BIOL 2305, BIOL 2102, MATH 1332, HPRS 2300, BIOL 2420,
and RNSG 1105.
Corequisite: RNSG 1160.
Course Objectives:
Upon completion of the course the student will be able to:
1. Utilize clinical reasoning and the nursing process guided by evidence based practice as a
framework for nursing decisions in meeting the health care needs of a selected patient.
2. Describe the concepts associated with the physiological, psychosocial, and spiritual
responses to human needs.
3. Describe the four roles of the professional nurse when providing patient-centered care to a
selected patient.
4. Describe teaching and learning principles utilized in patient education.
5. Discuss legal principles from governing and accrediting agencies and ethical guidelines when
planning patient-centered nursing care.
6. Formulate goals and outcomes that promote quality and a risk free, safe environment for all
individuals.
7. Demonstrate competence and safety in the performance of selected nursing skills.
8. Identify the role of a health care advocate when collaborating with members of the
interdisciplinary health team determining resources that facilitate continuity of care;
health promotion, maintenance, and restoration.
9. Examine the principles of therapeutic communication that facilitate interactions with
patients and health care members.
10. Discuss use of technology when communicating and gathering information to support
decision making.
11. Discuss delegation and identify the principles of delegation of nursing care.
12. Identify measures that promote the development and practice of professional nursing.
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Course Content
Module - Nursing as a Profession
1. History
2. Practice settings
3. Roles
4. Nursing as a profession
5. Health Care Delivery System
a. Levels of care: prevention, promotion, acute, rehabilitation
b. Types of services/setting: home health, subacute care, long term care
c. Methods of payment
i. HMO, PPO, Catastrophic coverage
ii. Prospective, retrospective, capitation
iii. Medicare and Medicaid
6. Health care team
7. Organization of the hospital
8. Methods of organizing on a nursing unit
Module - Ethical and Legal Aspects of Nursing
1. Ethical
a. Values clarification
b. Sources of ethics in nursing
c. Ethical principles
d. Ethical dilemmas
e. Ethical decision making
2. Legal
a. Definition of law: criminal, civil; liability, other.
b. Laws that affect nursing practice
c. Texas Board of Nursing
d. Texas Nurse Practice Act
e. Scope of practice
Module - Documentation and Reporting
1. Oral communication
a. Giving a report
b. Lines of communication; SBAR
2. Written communication
a. Content of Charting: routine vs significant findings
b. Narrative Charting
c. Problem oriented; charting by exception
d. Flowsheets
3. Legal aspects
Module - The Nursing Process
1. Overview
2. Steps of nursing process
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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Data collection
Nursing diagnosis
Planning: Goals and outcomes
Interventions and scientific rationale
Evaluation phase
Module - Psychosocial Integrity
1. Concepts
a. Stress and stressors
b. Coping/Anxiety
c. Self concept
d. Sexuality
e. Support Systems: family and culture
2. Providing basic information to patients
3. Psychosocial assessment
4. Nurse-patient relationship
5. Communication:
a. Verbal and nonverbal
b. Facilitation of Therapeutic communication
c. Non therapeutic communication
6. Drug therapy: general classifications only
Module - Spirituality
1. Religion vs. spirituality
2. Major religions of the world
3. Factors affecting spirituality
4. Interventions
Module - Inflammation and Infection
1. Differentiation between inflammation and infection
2. Major defense systems of body
3. Components/functions of immune system
4. Diagnostic tests: WBC, culture and sensitivity
5. Stages of inflammation
6. Stages of infection
7. Interventions for inflammation/infection
Module - Nutrition
1. Assessment of nutritional status:
a. Anthropometrics
b. Other
2. Major nutrients
a. Proteins, fats, carbohydrates
b. Vitamins and minerals
3. Nutritional problems
a. Anorexia
b. Malnutrition
c. Obesity
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4.
5.
6.
7.
Diagnostic tests
Alternate feeding methods
Nutritional supplements
Medications: appetite stimulants and suppressants
Module - Activity and Mobility
1. Benefits of activity and exercise
2. Concept of disuse syndrome
3. Activity intolerance
4. Factors affecting activity and exercise
5. Cause and effect inactivity and decreased mobility
6. Interventions: Positioning, exercise, ambulation
Module - Rest and sleep
1. Sleep theories
2. Physiology and regulation
3. Stages of sleep
4. Diagnostic tests
5. Sleep disorders
6. Interventions
Module - Sensory-perceptual function
1. Definitions
2. Sensory deficits: taste, touch, smell, hearing, vision
3. Assessment of sensory deprivation; overload
4. Interventions
Module - The Aging process
1. Theories of aging
2. Physical and psychosocial changes: Middle adult; older adult
3. Psychosocial issues of elderly
a. Housing
b. Safety
c. Nutrition
d. Support systems
e. Income
f. Other
g. Setting for care
i) Types of settings
ii) Payment for long term care
Module - End of Life
1. Loss and grief
2. The grief process
3. Interventions
a. Communication
b. End of life care
4. Ethical and legal issues
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a. Advanced directives
b. Definition of death
c. other
5. Issues relative to death
Lab Modules:
1. Physical assessment
2. Non-parenteral medication
3. Parenteral medication
4. Enteral tubes
a. Gastric decompression
b. Feeding tubes
i) Placement
ii) Administration of enteral feedings
iii) Administration of medications through a tube
5. Catheterization
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