If you are having difficulty identifying or analyzing your patient’s primary problem please call your instructor at home.
Each time you complete this map your analytical and critical thinking skills will improve. Your ability to identify patient
problems and the most appropriate nursing actions will develop. Your ability to analyze test questions and identify the
correct answer in nursing school and for the NCLEX will also improve.
1. Pathophysiolgy column
a. At the top of the column list patient etiology and risk factors that led to the disease.
Check your medical-surgical textbook to make sure you are including all factors.
b. From your medical-surgical and pathophysiology texts (or internet) make a cause and affect flow chart of
what happens in the body that causes the disease. Link each effect to its cause with an arrow.
c. End the flow chart with complications that can arise from this disease linked to the flow chart with arrows.