Functional health patterns applied to palliative care: a case study

In all aspects of nursing appropriate care can only be delivered if patients' problems are appropriately identified. In palliative care assessment of need may be particularly difficult as patients experience such a wide range and complexity of problems. In this work Functional Health Patterns (FHP) were used to structure the assessment of a patient referred to as Maria. Once her needs were identified the data was verified and interpreted leading to nursing diagnoses. Case studies are a non-experimental approach in which a wealth of descriptive information is used to examine an issue in depth. In this paper a single case study design was used to apply FHP to identify the needs of Maria. In so doing the theoretical approach of FHP was applied in practice and was subjectively evaluated by an expert in the field of palliative care. The assessment outcomes are presented and may be of value to others wishing to review their patient assessment process.