title: Exploring the assessment process.
abstract: Assessment is a fundamental nursing skill that underpins decisions about interventions and priorities in care delivery. Rather than the holistic, individualised approach envisaged in the nursing process, nursing assessment of the sick child in hospital appears to focus mainly on quantitative data and preventing clinical failures. In this article, Carper's (1978) four 'patterns of knowing in nursing' are used to illustrate how assessment could be broadened to better inform nurses' decision making and to make child and family-centred care more of a reality.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health, Sport and Science, University of Glamorgan, Wales.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Broom
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002673:Child, Hospitalized; D003625:Data Collection; D003657:Decision Making; D004645:Empathy; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D016294:Models, Nursing; D017008:Negotiating; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009736:Nursing Process / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010347:Patient Care Planning / Q000458:organization & administration; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D010371:Pediatric Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011340:Problem Solving; D011368:Professional-Family Relations