The nurse is providing preoperative teaching to a patient to have an operation on their colon for cancer. The nurse should take which of the following actions regarding informed consent?
Ensure the patient has received all necessary information about the procedure.
Make sure the client is competent to give consent.
Give a complete description of the procedure.
Witness the informed consent.
Research a non-surgical alternative treatment for colon cancer.
The Correct Answer is D
Choice A reason: Ensuring the patient receives all necessary information is the physician’s responsibility, not the nurse’s. Informed consent involves explaining risks, benefits, and alternatives, impacting patient autonomy. The nurse’s role is to witness the consent, verifying the patient’s understanding and voluntary agreement, ensuring ethical and legal standards are met without delivering medical details.
Choice B reason: Assessing competence is typically the physician’s role, as it requires evaluating cognitive capacity, influenced by neurological or psychological factors. Nurses may observe mental status but do not formally determine competence. Witnessing consent ensures the patient’s voluntary agreement, aligning with ethical principles of autonomy, making this a secondary nursing responsibility.
Choice C reason: Giving a complete procedure description is the surgeon’s duty, as it requires detailed medical knowledge of risks and outcomes. Nurses reinforce education but focus on witnessing consent to confirm voluntary agreement. Providing medical details exceeds the nurse’s scope, potentially causing confusion or miscommunication, impacting the patient’s informed decision-making process.
Choice D reason: Witnessing informed consent is the nurse’s primary role, verifying the patient received and understood information from the physician and consents voluntarily. This upholds autonomy, ensuring the patient’s decision aligns with their values. The nurse’s signature confirms the process, protecting legal and ethical standards without requiring them to provide medical explanations.
Choice E reason: Researching non-surgical alternatives is outside the nurse’s scope during preoperative teaching. Physicians discuss treatment options, considering cancer stage and biology. Nurses focus on witnessing consent, ensuring the patient’s understanding and voluntary agreement, supporting autonomy without delving into medical research, which could delay or confuse the consent process.
Nursing Test Bank
Naxlex Comprehensive Predictor Exams
Related Questions
Correct Answer is ["A","B","C"]
Explanation
Choice A reason: Precise wound documentation ensures continuity of care by providing a detailed record of wound characteristics, treatments, and progress. This allows multiple providers to deliver consistent care, reducing errors and ensuring interventions align with the patient’s healing trajectory, per interdisciplinary care and documentation standards.
Choice B reason: Accurate evaluation of care relies on precise wound documentation, which tracks changes in size, depth, and healing status. This enables providers to assess treatment effectiveness, adjust plans, and prevent complications, ensuring evidence-based care delivery, per wound management and clinical evaluation protocols.
Choice C reason: Appropriate changes in wound care are guided by precise documentation, which identifies healing trends or deterioration. Detailed records inform timely modifications to dressings or therapies, optimizing outcomes and preventing infection or delayed healing, per wound care decision-making and clinical practice guidelines.
Choice D reason: A closed drainage system relates to wound management devices, not documentation. While documentation may note drainage system use, it does not directly contribute to its function. Precise documentation supports care planning, not mechanical systems, making this irrelevant to the question, per wound care technology.
Correct Answer is D
Explanation
Choice A reason: This response dismisses the patient’s anxiety by offering superficial reassurance without addressing their emotional state. Preoperative anxiety activates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing cortisol and adrenaline, which disrupt sleep by elevating heart rate and alertness. This approach fails to validate emotions, potentially worsening stress responses and hindering psychological coping, making it non-therapeutic for addressing the patient’s distress.
Choice B reason: Questioning the patient’s insomnia and implying they should feel reassured invalidates their feelings. Anxiety triggers the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, releasing stress hormones that disrupt REM sleep cycles. This response lacks empathy, failing to address the limbic system’s role in emotional distress, which is critical for therapeutic communication to reduce preoperative anxiety and promote emotional stability.
Choice C reason: Minimizing the patient’s concerns and focusing on pharmacological intervention ignores emotional needs. Sedatives may depress the central nervous system to induce sleep, but they don’t address anxiety-driven amygdala activation, which elevates cortisol. A therapeutic response should validate feelings and offer emotional support to mitigate stress responses, making this option inadequate for addressing the patient’s psychological state.
Choice D reason: This empathetic response acknowledges the patient’s uncertainty and invites dialogue, aligning with therapeutic communication principles. Preoperative anxiety, driven by fear of unknown surgical outcomes, activates the limbic system, increasing heart rate and cortisol. By validating emotions and offering support, this response fosters trust, reduces stress hormone release, and supports psychological coping, making it the most appropriate choice.
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