ABSTRACT
The importance of patient assessment cannot be overstated. As a student or registered nurse, every time you approach a patient you will be making some kind of assessment. At one extreme this may be as simple as noticing that a patient looks better than they did yesterday; or thinking that they look uncomfortable, or worried, or happy and so on; at the other extreme this may involve the purposeful, deliberate and systematic collection of information, some of which will be objectively measurable. Using only the former approach you may notice some things but not others and so may or may not obtain accurate information, particularly if you do not check out your suspicions or assumptions against an external source. For example, if you decide to change the position of a patient you think looks uncomfortable without checking with that patient about whether or not they are uncomfortable, then you may inadvertently cause rather than relieve discomfort, as well as adding to your workload. Using a systematic approach, you will be less likely to miss information important to making decisions about patient care.
