Concept Mapping Techniques for Nursing Care Planning : From Experience to Clinical Application

Abstract

Nursing care planning is a dynamic and complex process aimed at addressing patients' health problems. It requires specialized nursing skills, experience, and knowledge. Concept mapping serves as an important alternative tool that enables nurses to better understand individual patients' complex health problems and develop nursing care plans that are more aligned with their specific conditions. This is achieved through systematic cause-and-effect linkages derived from health history, illness history, physical examination, medications and treatment plans, laboratory and diagnostic test results, leading to nursing diagnoses. This approach facilitates accurate, appropriate, and comprehensive nursing activity planning that can effectively address health problems and respond to patients' needs. This academic article aims to present concept mapping techniques for nursing care planning based on the authors' experience, for application in clinical nursing care planning. The key content includes an introduction, characteristics of effective concept maps for nursing care planning, strategies and techniques for creating concept maps for nursing care planning, along with interesting examples of concept map creation. This will benefit professional nurses, nursing students, and interested individuals as a guideline for patient care planning.