The teaching of the nursing process to undergraduate students

Abstract

The authors, instructors of Fundamentals of Nursing, describe two experiments in teaching nursing process, for which two different types of field of practice were used: the nursing personnel of the first hospital did not employ the nursing process in the care of their patients, but on the second hospital the utilization of this process had been adopted. Two outstanding expected results were obtained: 1. The group of students, who practised in the first hospital did not believe the utilization of the nursing process would be possible in professional practices; but the groups who had seen such process being used showed a totally different attitude and agreed about the convenience of the adaption of the nursing process by the hospitals; 2. the students who are taking Fundamentals of Nursing are not get prepared to identify nursing problems and to suggest solution, owing to their lack of knowledge of pathology. The authors recommend the teaching of the nursing process gradually, througout the undergraduate course, in order to secure more effective results.