The nursing profession encompasses collaborative and autonomous care of individuals of all ages, families, communities and groups, either sick or well. According to International Code of Nurses (2002) nursing includes health promotion, prevention of illness and caring for the ill, disabled and dying individuals. The nursing process guides the actions of the nurse and is a modified version of the scientific method used in the medical profession. It was developed by Ida Jean Orlando in 1958, and is a goal-oriented, client-centered and measurable, realistic plan of action for individual or community wellness improvement (ICN, 2002).
The modern day nursing process has five steps: assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. These steps are designed to make more efficient patient care and have phases with their own set of actions (nursingprocess.org, 2005). The nursing process is systematic and allows for collaboration with all other members of the health care team to ensure quality care. As the process is always ongoing, there is no set amount of time for any one step to begin or be completed. In other words, the nursing process can be seen as cyclical, while the phases are ongoing, the actual process can end any time once the patient 's problems are solved (Taylor, Lillis & LeMone, 2001).
The first phase of the nursing process is assessment. In this phase the nursing student would collect information about patient’s psychological, physiological,