Health Assessment and Decision Making
Overview
This unit provides opportunities for students to develop their knowledge and skills in the assessment of the health status of individuals across the lifespan, and to integrate their knowledge of normal processes and pathophysiology to nursing practice. Students will focus on factors that impact on mental and physical health assessment. At the completion of the unit students will be able to undertake a comprehensive subjective/objective systems assessment on an individual, and critically apply this knowledge to nursing practice.
Requisites
Rules
Pre-requisite
Admission into BA-NUR - Bachelor of Nursing
Concurrent Pre-requisite
BIO10004 Anatomy and Physiology
01-June-2025
01-June-2025
Learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:
- Undertake a comprehensive health history and a systematic physical assessment to obtain data to inform decision making
- Analyse a person’s history across the lifespan including physical and psychosocial examination findings to determine physical and sensory capacities.
- Integrate and apply knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology as evidence from additional sources to inform decision-making
- Demonstrate effective and culturally safe communication skills
- Recognise the role and scope of a registered nurse in the undertaking of a health assessment
Teaching methods
Hawthorn
| Type | Hours per week | Number of weeks | Total (number of hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-campus Lecture | 1.00 | 12 weeks | 12 |
| On-campus Class | 2.00 | 12 weeks | 24 |
| On-campus Class | 2.00 | 8 weeks | 16 |
| Online Learning activities | 2.00 | 12 weeks | 24 |
| Unspecified Activities Various | 6.17 | 12 weeks | 74 |
| TOTAL | 150 |
Assessment
| Type | Task | Weighting | ULO's |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assessment | Individual | 30% | 1,2,4 |
| Assignment | Individual | 40% | 1,2,3,4,5 |
| Oral Presentation | Individual | 30% | 1,2,4,5 |
Content
- Body systems evidence based framework for health assessment
- Culturally safe communication skills in history taking, assessment and examination
- Mental, psychosocial and physical health assessment skills and examination techniques
- Collection and analysis of data (subjective and objective)
- Problem solving and clinical reasoning
- Lifespan development
- Graduate Attribute – Communication Skills: Verbal communication
- Graduate Attribute – Communication Skills: Communicating using different media
- Graduate Attribute – Teamwork Skills: Collaboration and negotiation
- Graduate Attribute – Teamwork Skills: Teamwork roles and processes
- Graduate Attribute – Digital Literacies: Information literacy
- Graduate Attribute – Digital Literacies: Technical literacy
Study resources
Reading materials
A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.