You might have encountered nursing concept maps for someone studying medicine or working in the same field. These diagrams are essential when you define patient issues, organize assessment results, and select relevant procedures and diagnoses. Medicine, including nursing, is a vast topic; hence, you can expect various nursing concept map examples. Learn more about these diagram examples by reading this article.
What is a nursing concept map?
A nursing concept map lets students and anyone who utilizes the diagram organize and visualize patient care through an easy-to-read visual illustration, which magnifies the connections among different nursing concepts. Students can also use a nursing concept map example as a self-teaching technique to help those pre-plan clinical assignments. The concept map also increases their clinical judgment and reasoning and optimizes learning.
Nursing Concept Map Examples
The diagrams below will help you choose the nursing concept map example. All the samples are flexible, so you can take inspiration from several templates and structure your nursing concept map.
Patient Assessment Concept Map
The patient assessment concept map records significant patient information. The diagram is like a step-by-step process of checking a patient's condition. It generally starts with a general impression of sex, age, and safety. The assessment process can have three phases; the first assessment involves checking the degree of emergency. This concept map guides nurses and other healthcare providers on patients' treatment options, especially for outpatients.
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Medication Administration Concept Map
Some might be used to having over-the-counter drugs where people can take medicines without a doctor's or nurse's supervision. However, medication administration involves the direct application of prescribed medications. They can be through inhalation, ingestion, injection, or other means. Most importantly, it must be legally authorized. This is why creating a nursing concept map example for medication administration is essential to guide the treatment process, including the dosage and the negative affecting factors.
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Pain Management Concept Map
As the name suggests, pain management is part of medicine and health care, which involves pain relief in different dimensions. This can range from simple and acute to chronic and challenging. The look of concept maps for pain management may include therapy, injections, exercise, medications, and hands-on treatments. Of course, one must provide an assessment section on the map to check the severity of the patient's pain and other factors before deciding on the treatment.
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Coronary Artery Disease Concept Map
This might be a severe medical condition, but it does mean your concept map will have plain visuals. There's a nursing concept map example that effectively visualizes coronary artery disease by providing colors for the primary categories. The best way to do it is through diagramming software so you can customize everything. You can divide your concept map into two sections. The first would be for categories like definition, symptoms, causes, and potential complications, while the other section may include assessment, risk factors, and nursing interventions.
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COPD Concept Map
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or what they call COPD, is a common lung illness that causes breathing issues and restricted airflow. Nursing students might have a deeper understanding of this condition, but when one has to explain COPD to patients, a COPD concept map might be essential. You can include the COPD's signs and symptoms, medications, prevention, complications, and risk factors. This way, it's easier to understand how COPD might affect an individual.
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Pneumonia Concept Map
It's essential to define the condition on your pneumonia concept map so your audience will not confuse it with other illnesses. As you all know, pneumonia is an infection that inflames the person's lungs. Remember to use short phrases and sentences for easy understanding. Your concept map may include nursing diagnosis, risk factors, symptoms, and patient education.
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Congestive Heart Failure Concept Map
Surely, you can look for a nursing concept map example to explain congestive heart failure. However, to make your diagram more informative, you include treatment options for patients with congestive heart failure. Of course, the concept map must also have medications, risk factors, and nursing diagnoses so patients will be more informed about the condition.
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Hypertension Concept Map
When caring for patients with hypertension, a nursing concept map example becomes an indispensable organizational tool to ensure comprehensive discussions. It aids in structuring vital components such as diagnoses, interventions, potential complications, symptoms, and assessment criteria. Additionally, if medication management is required, a medication administration concept map proves invaluable. Thus, in this scenario, two nursing concept map examples come into play, optimizing the clarity and effectiveness of patient care planning. These visual aids enable healthcare professionals to strategize and communicate essential information, fostering better patient outcomes and enhancing the overall quality of care provided in hypertension management.
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Sepsis Concept Map
To develop a nursing concept map for sepsis, you can draw inspiration from the hypertension concept map example. While the overarching categories such as nursing management, patient education, complications, and medications may remain consistent, the specific details within the concept map must pertain to sepsis. Online diagramming tools offer a practical advantage in this regard, as you can adapt the existing hypertension concept map template for your sepsis concept diagram. This allows for efficient customization by simply editing and tailoring the information to suit the unique requirements of sepsis management, streamlining the process of creating a comprehensive and effective visual aid for healthcare professionals.
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Stroke Concept Map
When creating a concept map for stroke, you can draw parallels with previous diagrams illustrating different medical conditions. Position stroke as the central concept, and branch out into key sections such as risk factors, complications, prevention, symptoms, and medications. Within each of these sections, provide in-depth information about relevant subcategories to enhance the clarity and depth of understanding. Employing distinct colors for each category can further alleviate potential confusion and improve visual comprehension, ensuring that the stroke concept map effectively conveys vital information for healthcare professionals and patients alike.
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Nursing Concept Map FAQs
Why is the nursing concept map important?
A nursing concept map is essential as it incorporates practice and theory, educational journals, case management, and the techniques of nursing students. As these students use concept maps, it enhances the feeling of fulfillment, self-confidence, and the skills in building critical thinking. Also, it was found that by concept mapping, nursing students can efficiently recognize subjects and theories they're unfamiliar with, understand the subject effectively, and positively affect their academic achievements.
In most cases, a simple nursing concept map example shows four vital areas of responsibility - infection prevention, psychological response, culture of safety, and behavior response. However, these categories change depending on the central concept you want to digest. As you can see from the examples above, they may have similar categories, but the difference will boil down to the supporting details for each type.
How do you create a nursing care plan concept map?
Regardless of the type of nursing concept map you make, remember to consider the following steps below:
- Select a topic and ask some critical questions about it. In the medical field, choose whether the concept concerns a specific illness, medication administration, or pain management.
- Brainstorm about what details you will include in the concept map. You can brainstorm with your peers and colleagues and use sticky notes to list the items. If you're using diagramming software, you only need to write them on the virtual template. Doing some research is beneficial so you can quickly provide supporting information.
- You must organize the gathered information. This step involves grouping and scoring. While performing the concept grouping process, place the related nodes or topics into piles. Online diagramming tools let you drag and drop items under the main categories. This is easier than manually scanning through sticky notes to group related ideas. Most importantly, you must score the level of importance of the concepts and categories.
- It would be helpful to include cross-links and linking words. This lets you consolidate the connections between categories. Also, using linking words makes it easier for our audience to understand the relationships.
- Review and revise. As you may know, concept maps can be complex as you must identify the relationships of specific nodes. This is why it's essential to review the concept map and make changes if necessary before presenting the diagram to your audience. All online diagramming tools allow you to edit your template efficiently.
