Analyzing one’s performance on the integrated, comprehensive assessments and reflecting on areas of opportunity and strategies to promote NCLEX-RN success and transition into practice. Assess Clients Ability to Cope with Life Changes and Provide Support Assess Client’s Ability to Cope with Life Changes and Provide Support The student will apply the priority concept (topic) to evidence-based professional practice upon which nurses can resolve or positively impact. There is a focus on the individual’s healthcare disparities as well as ethical and legal implications for professional practice. The student will discuss how an interdisciplinary approach promotes quality improvement for the patient and evidence-based professional practice, driving positive outcomes.

Assess Clients Ability to Cope with Life Changes and Provide Support

Introduction

Coping is the ability of an individual to establish, maintain and regain psychological integrity when this integrity is disrupted by factors (Heffer & Willoughby, 2017). Individual coping can be adaptive or maladaptive. Adaptive coping resolves the stress, while maladaptive coping does not resolve the stress and may result in a worse situation for the patient. An example is an individual who starts drinking alcohol because of the loss of a loved one. Alcoholism may not resolve the stress, but it may result in other mental conditions such as depression and other physical health problems. This essay will discuss the importance of psychosocial integrity as a priority concept. In addition to this, it will assess the healthcare disparities, inequalities, and interventions associated with the priority topic. It will further discuss legal and ethical considerations associated with the priority topic. In addition to this, participation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and quality improvement associated with the priority concept will be highlighted.

The priority topic selected is the preservation of the population’s psychosocial integrity. This can be achieved by assessing the client’s ability with life changes and providing support.  This concept topic is related to the NCLEX examination blueprint. The nurse provides and directs nursing care that promotes and supports the emotional, mental and social well-being of clients experiencing stressful events and clients with acute and chronic mental illnesses. The learning strategies used in learning this priority topic are question and answer technique, short case scenarios, and rationale. The two learning resources used in the NCLEX exam plan are ATI practice questions and UWorld.

Importance

All changes threaten the homeostasis of patients. Due to this, clients must effectively cope with psychological, social, physical, and economic changes in an adaptive coping mechanism. The priority concept is essential to professional practice. Nurses must be aware of strategies that can help the patient develop positive coping strategies to prevent the harmful effects of ineffective coping strategies. Stress significantly affects the physical, social, and mental well-being of patients. Stress can result from significant life events such as divorce, moving, illness, financial problems, parenthood, and the death of someone you love. It can also result from daily stressors.

Failure to assess the ability of patients to cope with changes and provide support by nurses can negatively impact professional practice. Patients with poor coping strategies can have adverse effects such as alcoholism, substance use disorders, and even suicide. This can put a strain on the healthcare delivery industry, which can cause burnout and job dissatisfaction for nurses. Stress can have a negative impact on the patient population if support is not provided. Unresolved stress can physically, emotionally, and psychologically affect the body. It can result in anxiety, weight changes, chronic pain, tension, distress, dangerous behaviours towards others or self, depression, irritability, forgetfulness, loss of focus, fatigue, hypertension, headache, poor concentration levels, sleep impairments, muscular tension, trembling, increased vulnerabilities to diseases such as myocardial infarction and infections (Yaribeygi et al., 2017).

Healthcare Disparities, Inequalities, and Interventions

The individuals who may be negatively affected if the priority concept is not resolved include individuals with high-intensity stress levels, individuals who have stress for longer periods, individuals who lack effective protective mechanisms against stress, and individuals who have poor coping mechanisms against stress. Nurses can utilize many healthcare resources to support evidence-based practice related to the priority concept. These include nursing textbooks, scholarly articles in reputable behavioural journals, and websites of reputable organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The scholarly articles can be obtained from Cochrane, Google Scholar, Medline, and Pubmed databases.

The healthcare disparities that may arise due to the priority concept is age.  Older adults may lose their breadwinner, take the new role of caregiving for their spouse, care for their grandchildren, and lose other roles due to old age and chronic conditions that may disrupt their ability to do activities of daily living. An evidence-based solution to ineffective coping is to conduct a patient assessment to determine problems that may result in patient ineffective coping (Carpenito, 2017). This will help to implement a