Nurses and Abdominal Pain Patient Care the Essay

Nurses and Abdominal Pain Patient Care

The people that make up a medical setting contribute immensely and provide the professional care they know to patients who visit the place, whether it's a clinic or a hospital. When the patient first walks in, he or she will meet the desk clerk and other people who will help her get settled in. However, none are the most important when it comes to first professional contact than nurses. The role of nurses is important when patients are in tremendous pain and agony. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different things, methods, and strategies nurses are expected to do in situations where patients are presented with abdominal pain. Overall, it is seem that nurses supplement and complement care on behalf of physicians and their patients.

Summary

Most of the people who come through the doors of a clinic, physician's office, emergency room, or going into a surgical room, it is mostly because of abdominal pain. After the patient is admitted and can see the nurse, the healthcare professional will then take down a personal history before assessing the patient's condition. It is important the nurse asks questions pertaining to the pain, associated symptoms, past medical and medication history, and social and family history because they can all contribute and help find out what the is the patient's problem. As noted by Cole (2006), "the history can provide 70 per cent or more of the clues to the diagnosis." Nurses should also delve into certain histories that are associated with acute abdominal pain, for example, diabetes, drug use through intravenous, or pregnancy. As well, nurses should note whether the patient has alcoholic liver disease, heart problems, ingestion of several medications, or prior history of surgical procedures. Family history is significant since certain cancers and diseases can be due to genetics, or if friends have a contagious disease that can be passed on to the patient. Social history is important since finding out where the patient works, the environment, and whether or not stress is part of the equation will impact findings.

After an assessment, the nurse will then ask the patient the location and quality of the pain. For the former, the nurse will investigate which of the quadrants the abdominal pain is coming from. Nurses see the abdominal cavity in four parts, which are the right upper quadrant, left upper quadrant, right lower quadrant, and left lower quadrant. Each of these aforementioned parts capsulate certain organs of the abdominal cavity, which include the liver, gall bladder, parts of the colon and intestines, appendix, stomach, spleen, and pancreas. The right upper quadrant consists part of the ascending and transverse colon, duodenum, head of the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder. The left upper quadrant contains the left lobe of the liver, stomach, spleen, body of pancreas, and ascending and transverse colon. Furthermore, the right lower quadrant has the caecum, appendix, and ascending colon. The left lower quadrant includes the sigmoid and descending colon.

Once the location of the pain is pointed out by the patient and investigated by the nurse, the healthcare professional will then ask the patient to describe the pain, whether it's referred or radiated. The former type of pain is where it hurts in one region, but pain is felt in another part of the body. The latter is pain that travels to anywhere in the body. Furthermore, pain can be parietal or visceral. The former is sharp pain that is pointed out easily, usually due to inflammation of the parietal peritoneum, while the latter is dull and its origins are vague but may be due to a solid or hollow organ. After the type of pain is assessed by the nurse, the patient will then be asked to describe the characteristic of the pain, for example, if it's burning, aching, cramping or tearing. The former is associated with a peptic ulcer while the latter is due to…