The article provides the rationale for taking a comprehensive history of health of the patient stating that the process of taking the history of the patient not enables the practitioner to gain valuable information but also provides an opportunity to the patient to present personal account of their health accounts to practitioners. A systematic assessment of the patient’s health also provides an opportunity for nurses to establish relationship with patients.
The article begins with the importance of setting an appropriate environment so that nurse can effectively take the history of patients without any distractions or disturbances. The author also states that nurses need to be “systematic, sensitive and professional” and must ensure that patients are comfortable and able to communicate well with the nurses while providing them with crucial information regarding their health issues.
The importance of taking consent from patient before initiating any kind of healthcare intervention including information has been stressed by the author, which is a crucial aspect in the medical field. In the article the author provides valuable insight to nurses so that they can develop the key skills while enquiring their health status from patients. This can be efficiently done by following an appropriate sequence following a “logical and systematic approach”. The techniques of asking questions and whether and when the questions should be “open questions” and “closed questions” have been elucidated in the article. This should be followed by “clarification” so that the patient can confirm all the information and the nurse must ensure that the patient has not forgotten to mention any crucial information.
The “Calgary Cambridge Framework’ includes the five stages of obtaining patient history and has been stated to be particularly beneficial to all nurses irrespective of their experiences. The article is particularly interesting because it provides several examples of initiating the patients to facilitate their communication process so that optimal information is obtained from them. the material presented in the article is highly beneficial to me as a nurse because it relates perfectly to my area of study and would enable me to build on vital knowledge so that I can function optimally when trying to obtain information from patients regarding their health issues and problems.
Several crucial facts are highlighted in the article which asserts the importance of previous medical history and the mental health of patients. Family history and social history relevance have also been stressed by the author and its importance has been explained. The article provides practical intervention techniques for the health assessment strategies to be applied by nurses so that nurses can perform high quality and accurately recorded interviews. The article is extremely beneficial since it provides the reader with first hand information pertaining to the various symptoms of different illnesses and is a must read and keep for all nurses irrespective of their experience.
References
Lloyd H, Craig S (2007). A guide to taking a patient’s history. Nursing Standard. 22, 13, 423-48.