POTTER & PERRY’S CANADIAN FUNDAMENTALS OF
NURSING
7TH EDITION
350 PRACTICE QUESTIONS & CORRECT ANSWERS
A. HEALTH, CANADIAN HEALTH CARE & NURSING FOUNDATIONS
1. What is the difference between health and wellness?
Answer: Health is a dynamic state of physical, mental, and social well-being; wellness is the active process of
making choices that support well-being.
2. What are social determinants of health?
Answer: The social and economic conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age that
influence health outcomes.
3. Name four examples of social determinants of health.
Answer: Income, education, housing, employment/working conditions, food security, and social support are
examples.
4. What is health promotion?
Answer: Enabling people and communities to increase control over and improve their health.
5. What is primary prevention?
Answer: Actions that prevent illness or injury before it occurs, such as immunization and health education.
6. What is secondary prevention?
Answer: Early detection and prompt treatment, such as screening tests.
7. What is tertiary prevention?
Answer: Reducing complications and disability after disease or injury, including rehabilitation.
8. What is the purpose of Canada’s publicly funded health insurance system?
Answer: To provide eligible residents access to medically necessary insured services according to applicable
provincial or territorial plans.
9. What is the Canada Health Act’s principle of universality?
Answer: Eligible residents are entitled to insured health services on uniform terms and conditions.
10. What is the role of a provincial or territorial nursing regulator?
Answer: To protect the public by setting requirements for registration, standards, and professional conduct.
11. What is the difference between an RN and an LPN/RPN in Canada?
Answer: Both are regulated nurses; education, scope, and responsibilities differ by jurisdiction, role, client
complexity, and individual competence.
12. What is community health nursing?
Answer: Nursing that promotes and protects the health of populations and communities through prevention,
health promotion, and care.
13. What is cultural safety?
Potter & Perry’s Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing • Original 350 Q&A Study Guide
, Answer: Care that recognizes power imbalances and is defined by the recipient’s experience of feeling
respected and safe.
14. What does cultural humility require of a nurse?
Answer: Ongoing self-reflection, awareness of personal assumptions, and willingness to learn from clients.
15. What is an example of a health disparity?
Answer: A preventable difference in health outcomes or access to care between population groups.
16. What is the purpose of trauma-informed care?
Answer: To recognize the effects of trauma, promote safety and choice, and avoid retraumatization.
17. What is person-centred care?
Answer: Care that respects the person’s preferences, values, needs, and participation in decisions.
18. What is the purpose of nursing theory?
Answer: To organize nursing knowledge and guide understanding, practice, education, and research.
19. What is evidence-informed practice?
Answer: Integrating best available research evidence with clinical expertise and the client’s values and
circumstances.
20. What does the PICOT format help nurses develop?
Answer: A focused clinical question using Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Time.
21. What is the purpose of a nursing code of ethics?
Answer: To guide ethical practice, professional responsibilities, and decision-making.
22. What is advocacy in nursing?
Answer: Supporting and protecting clients’ rights, choices, safety, and access to appropriate care.
23. What is accountability in nursing?
Answer: Being answerable for one’s decisions, actions, and omissions within professional responsibilities.
24. What is a nurse’s responsibility when an assignment is beyond their competence?
Answer: Recognize the limitation, communicate promptly, seek appropriate support, and follow regulatory
and workplace processes.
25. What is interprofessional collaboration?
Answer: Health professionals working together with clients and families toward shared care goals.
26. What is the purpose of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action in health care?
Answer: To address harms and inequities affecting Indigenous peoples and support culturally safe,
equitable services.
27. What is an important principle when caring for Indigenous clients?
Answer: Avoid assumptions, respect self-determination and cultural practices, and ask the client what
matters to them.
28. What is global health?
Answer: An area of study and practice focused on health issues that cross national boundaries and require
collective action.
29. How can climate change affect health?
Answer: Through heat illness, extreme weather, air quality, food and water insecurity, and changing
infectious disease patterns.
30. What is the purpose of practical nursing education and regulation?
Potter & Perry’s Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing • Original 350 Q&A Study Guide
, Answer: To prepare and authorize nurses to provide safe, competent, ethical care within their regulated
scope.
B. CRITICAL THINKING, NURSING PROCESS & CLINICAL JUDGMENT
31. What are the five traditional steps of the nursing process?
Answer: Assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation.
32. What is the first step of the nursing process?
Answer: Assessment: systematic collection and validation of client information.
33. What is the difference between subjective and objective data?
Answer: Subjective data are reported by the client; objective data are observable or measurable findings.
34. Give one example of subjective data.
Answer: The client reports nausea or rates pain as 7 out of 10.
35. Give one example of objective data.
Answer: A measured temperature of 38.2°C or observed redness around an incision.
36. What is a nursing diagnosis?
Answer: A clinical judgment about a human response to health conditions or life processes that guides
nursing interventions.
37. How does a nursing diagnosis differ from a medical diagnosis?
Answer: A medical diagnosis identifies a disease; a nursing diagnosis describes responses or needs nurses
can address.
38. What is the purpose of prioritization?
Answer: To address the most urgent threats and important client needs first.
39. What does ABC stand for in emergency prioritization?
Answer: Airway, Breathing, and Circulation.
40. What is Maslow’s hierarchy used for in nursing?
Answer: As one aid to prioritizing physiological and safety needs before higher-level needs when
appropriate.
41. What is a SMART outcome?
Answer: An outcome that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
42. What is the difference between a goal and a nursing intervention?
Answer: A goal describes the desired client outcome; an intervention is an action taken to help achieve it.
43. What is an independent nursing intervention?
Answer: An action a nurse may initiate within their scope without a prescriber’s order.
44. What is a dependent nursing intervention?
Answer: An intervention requiring an authorized order, such as administering a prescribed medication.
45. What is a collaborative intervention?
Answer: An action planned or delivered with other members of the health care team.
46. What is evaluation in the nursing process?
Answer: Comparing the client’s actual response with expected outcomes and revising the plan as needed.
47. What is clinical reasoning?
Answer: The process of interpreting information and using it to make sound clinical decisions.
Potter & Perry’s Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing • Original 350 Q&A Study Guide
NURSING
7TH EDITION
350 PRACTICE QUESTIONS & CORRECT ANSWERS
A. HEALTH, CANADIAN HEALTH CARE & NURSING FOUNDATIONS
1. What is the difference between health and wellness?
Answer: Health is a dynamic state of physical, mental, and social well-being; wellness is the active process of
making choices that support well-being.
2. What are social determinants of health?
Answer: The social and economic conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age that
influence health outcomes.
3. Name four examples of social determinants of health.
Answer: Income, education, housing, employment/working conditions, food security, and social support are
examples.
4. What is health promotion?
Answer: Enabling people and communities to increase control over and improve their health.
5. What is primary prevention?
Answer: Actions that prevent illness or injury before it occurs, such as immunization and health education.
6. What is secondary prevention?
Answer: Early detection and prompt treatment, such as screening tests.
7. What is tertiary prevention?
Answer: Reducing complications and disability after disease or injury, including rehabilitation.
8. What is the purpose of Canada’s publicly funded health insurance system?
Answer: To provide eligible residents access to medically necessary insured services according to applicable
provincial or territorial plans.
9. What is the Canada Health Act’s principle of universality?
Answer: Eligible residents are entitled to insured health services on uniform terms and conditions.
10. What is the role of a provincial or territorial nursing regulator?
Answer: To protect the public by setting requirements for registration, standards, and professional conduct.
11. What is the difference between an RN and an LPN/RPN in Canada?
Answer: Both are regulated nurses; education, scope, and responsibilities differ by jurisdiction, role, client
complexity, and individual competence.
12. What is community health nursing?
Answer: Nursing that promotes and protects the health of populations and communities through prevention,
health promotion, and care.
13. What is cultural safety?
Potter & Perry’s Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing • Original 350 Q&A Study Guide
, Answer: Care that recognizes power imbalances and is defined by the recipient’s experience of feeling
respected and safe.
14. What does cultural humility require of a nurse?
Answer: Ongoing self-reflection, awareness of personal assumptions, and willingness to learn from clients.
15. What is an example of a health disparity?
Answer: A preventable difference in health outcomes or access to care between population groups.
16. What is the purpose of trauma-informed care?
Answer: To recognize the effects of trauma, promote safety and choice, and avoid retraumatization.
17. What is person-centred care?
Answer: Care that respects the person’s preferences, values, needs, and participation in decisions.
18. What is the purpose of nursing theory?
Answer: To organize nursing knowledge and guide understanding, practice, education, and research.
19. What is evidence-informed practice?
Answer: Integrating best available research evidence with clinical expertise and the client’s values and
circumstances.
20. What does the PICOT format help nurses develop?
Answer: A focused clinical question using Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Time.
21. What is the purpose of a nursing code of ethics?
Answer: To guide ethical practice, professional responsibilities, and decision-making.
22. What is advocacy in nursing?
Answer: Supporting and protecting clients’ rights, choices, safety, and access to appropriate care.
23. What is accountability in nursing?
Answer: Being answerable for one’s decisions, actions, and omissions within professional responsibilities.
24. What is a nurse’s responsibility when an assignment is beyond their competence?
Answer: Recognize the limitation, communicate promptly, seek appropriate support, and follow regulatory
and workplace processes.
25. What is interprofessional collaboration?
Answer: Health professionals working together with clients and families toward shared care goals.
26. What is the purpose of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action in health care?
Answer: To address harms and inequities affecting Indigenous peoples and support culturally safe,
equitable services.
27. What is an important principle when caring for Indigenous clients?
Answer: Avoid assumptions, respect self-determination and cultural practices, and ask the client what
matters to them.
28. What is global health?
Answer: An area of study and practice focused on health issues that cross national boundaries and require
collective action.
29. How can climate change affect health?
Answer: Through heat illness, extreme weather, air quality, food and water insecurity, and changing
infectious disease patterns.
30. What is the purpose of practical nursing education and regulation?
Potter & Perry’s Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing • Original 350 Q&A Study Guide
, Answer: To prepare and authorize nurses to provide safe, competent, ethical care within their regulated
scope.
B. CRITICAL THINKING, NURSING PROCESS & CLINICAL JUDGMENT
31. What are the five traditional steps of the nursing process?
Answer: Assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation.
32. What is the first step of the nursing process?
Answer: Assessment: systematic collection and validation of client information.
33. What is the difference between subjective and objective data?
Answer: Subjective data are reported by the client; objective data are observable or measurable findings.
34. Give one example of subjective data.
Answer: The client reports nausea or rates pain as 7 out of 10.
35. Give one example of objective data.
Answer: A measured temperature of 38.2°C or observed redness around an incision.
36. What is a nursing diagnosis?
Answer: A clinical judgment about a human response to health conditions or life processes that guides
nursing interventions.
37. How does a nursing diagnosis differ from a medical diagnosis?
Answer: A medical diagnosis identifies a disease; a nursing diagnosis describes responses or needs nurses
can address.
38. What is the purpose of prioritization?
Answer: To address the most urgent threats and important client needs first.
39. What does ABC stand for in emergency prioritization?
Answer: Airway, Breathing, and Circulation.
40. What is Maslow’s hierarchy used for in nursing?
Answer: As one aid to prioritizing physiological and safety needs before higher-level needs when
appropriate.
41. What is a SMART outcome?
Answer: An outcome that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
42. What is the difference between a goal and a nursing intervention?
Answer: A goal describes the desired client outcome; an intervention is an action taken to help achieve it.
43. What is an independent nursing intervention?
Answer: An action a nurse may initiate within their scope without a prescriber’s order.
44. What is a dependent nursing intervention?
Answer: An intervention requiring an authorized order, such as administering a prescribed medication.
45. What is a collaborative intervention?
Answer: An action planned or delivered with other members of the health care team.
46. What is evaluation in the nursing process?
Answer: Comparing the client’s actual response with expected outcomes and revising the plan as needed.
47. What is clinical reasoning?
Answer: The process of interpreting information and using it to make sound clinical decisions.
Potter & Perry’s Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing • Original 350 Q&A Study Guide
