1 nursing chapter 1 Questions and
Complete Solutions Graded A+
Nursing knowledge - Answer: Knowledge is an awareness of reality acquired through learning or
investigation. Every individual collects, organizes, and arranges facts to build a knowledge base relevant
to one's personal reality. The knowledge base for professional nursing practice includes nursing science,
philosophy, and ethics; biology and psychology; and the social, physical, economic, organizational, and
technological sciences. Nursing's Social Policy Statement (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2010, pp.
13-14) lists the following as issues that nurses address in partnership with individuals, families,
communities, and populations:
Promotion of health and wellness
Promotion of safety and quality of care
Care, self-care processes, and care coordination
Physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort, discomfort, and pain
Adaptation to physiologic and pathophysiologic processes
Emotions related to the experience of birth, growth and development, health, illness, disease and death
Meanings ascribed to health, illness, and other concepts
Linguistic and cultural sensitivity
Health literacy
Decision making and the ability to make choices
Relationships, role performance, and change processes within relationships
Social policies and their effects on health
Health care systems and their relationships to access, cost, and quality of health care
The environment and the prevention of disease and injury
As you reflect on this list, you can see why your nursing education is so important and why professional
nurses are lifelong learners.
, traditional knowledge - Answer: __________ is that part of nursing practice passed down from
generation to generation. When questioned about the origin of such nursing practices, nurses might
reply, "We've always done it this way." Changing bedclothes is an example of how __________ has
affected nursing practice. It is customary in acute care settings to change a patient's bedclothes daily,
whether soiled or not. There are no research data to support this, yet virtually millions of hospital beds
are changed daily because this practice is accepted as a necessary component of quality patient care.
Until this practice is challenged scientifically and its assumed value disproved, it will remain a traditional
part of patient care.
authoritative knowledge - Answer: __________ comes from an expert and isaccepted as truth based on
the person's perceived expertise—for example, when a senior staff nurse teaches a new graduate nurse
a more efficient method of doing a technical procedure, such as inserting an intravenous catheter. The
senior nurse has gained knowledge through experience, and the new graduate nurse accepts it as truth
based on the perceived authority of the experienced nurse. __________ generally remains unchallenged
as long as presumed authorities maintain their perceived expertise.
Scientific knowledge - Answer: is knowledge obtained through the scientific method (implying thorough
research). New ideas are tested and measured systematically using objective criteria.
science - Answer: is observing, identifying, describing, investigating, and explaining events and
occurrences that are perceived in the world. It implies a body of knowledge. The science of nursing is
the knowledge in and of nursing.
philosophy - Answer: is the study of wisdom, fundamental knowledge, and the processes used to
develop and construct one's perceptions of life. __________ provides a viewpoint and implies a system
of values and beliefs. Each individual develops a personal __________ to give meaning to experiences
and to guide behavior and attitudes. Personal philosophies are developed by learning from interpersonal
relationships, through formal and informal educational experiences, through religion and culture, and
from the environment.
Every nurse's __________, developed through education and practice, forms the basis for providing
nursing care. Nurses demonstrate both a personal and professional __________ through their values
and beliefs about concepts such as goodness, health, illness, accountability, and ethics. In the same way,
nursing education and nursing practice settings provide education or patient care based on philosophic
beliefs about humans, health, teaching and learning, and quality patient care.
process - Answer: is a series of actions, changes, or functions intended to bring about a desired result.
During a __________, one takes systematic and continuous steps to meet a goal and uses both