how to write a conclusion for a nursing case study

How to Write a Nursing Case Study Paper (A Guide)

Most nursing students dread writing a nursing case study analysis paper, yet it is a mandatory assignment; call it a rite of passage in nursing school. This is because it is a somewhat tricky process that is often overwhelming for nursing students. Nevertheless, by reading this guide prepared by our best nursing students, you should be able to easily and quickly write a nursing case study that can get you an excellent grade.

How different is this guide from similar guides all over the internet? Very different!

This guide provides all the pieces of information that one would need to write an A-grade nursing case study. These include the format for a nursing case study, a step-by-step guide on how to write a nursing case study, and all the important tips to follow when writing a nursing case study.

This comprehensive guide was developed by the top nursing essay writers at NurseMyGrade, so you can trust that the information herein is a gem that will catapult your grades to the next level. Expect updates as we unravel further information about writing a nursing case study.

Now that you know you’ve discovered a gold mine , let’s get right into it.

What Is a Nursing Case Study?

A nursing case study is a natural or imagined patient scenario designed to test the knowledge and skills of student nurses. Nursing case study assignments usually focus on testing knowledge and skills in areas of nursing study related to daily nursing practice.

As a nursing student, you must expect a nursing case study assignment at some point in your academic life. The fact that you are reading this post means that point is now.

While there is no standard structure for writing a nursing case study assignment, some things or elements must be present in your nursing assignment for your professor to consider it complete.

In the next section, you will discover what your instructor n expects in your nursing case study analysis. Remember, these are assignments where you are given a case study and are expected to write a case analysis report explaining how to handle such scenarios in real-life settings.

The Nursing Case Study Template

The typical nursing case study has nine sections. These are:

• Introduction
• Case presentation (Patient info, history, and medical condition)
• Diagnosis/Nursing assessment
• Intervention/Nursing care plan
• Discussion and recommendations

The Structure of a Nursing Case Study Analysis

You now know what nursing professors expect in a nursing case study analysis. In this section, we will explain what to include in each section of your nursing case study analysis to make it an excellent one.

1. Title page

The title page is essential in all types of academic writing. You must include it in your nursing case study analysis or any other essay or paper. And you must include it in the format recommended by your college.

If your college has no specific title page format, use the title page format of the style requested in the assignment prompt. In nursing college, virtually all assignments should be written in Harvard or APA format .

So, check your assignment prompt and create your title page correctly. The typical title page should include the topic of your paper, your name, the name of your professor, the course name, the date you are submitting the paper, and the name of your college.

2. Abstract

Most nursing professors require you to include an abstract in your nursing case study analysis. And even when you are not explicitly required to write one, it is good to do so. Of course, you should consult with your professor before doing so.

When writing an abstract for your paper, make sure it is about 200 words long. The abstract should include a brief summary of the case study, including all the essential information in the patient presentation, such as the history, age, and current diagnosis.

The summary should also include the nursing assessment, the current interventions, and recommendations.

3. Introduction

After writing the title page and the abstract, start writing the introduction. The introduction of a nursing case study analysis must briefly include the patient’s presentation, current diagnosis and medication, and recommendations. It must also include a strong thesis statement that shows what the paper is all about.

You shouldn’t just write an introduction for the sake of it. If you do so, your introduction will be bland. You need to put in good effort when writing your introduction. The best way to do this is to use your introduction to show you understand the case study perfectly and that you will analyze it right.

You can always write your introduction last. Many students do this because they believe writing an introduction last makes it more precise and accurate.

4. Case Presentation (Status of the Patient)

After introducing your nursing case study analysis, you should present the case where you outline the patient's status. It is usually straightforward to present a case.

You must paraphrase the patient scenario in the assignment prompt or brief. Focus on the demographic data of the patient (who they are, age, race, height, skin tone, occupation, relationships, marital status, appearance, etc.), why they are in the case study or scenario, reasons they sought medical attention, chief complaint, and current diagnosis and treatment. You should also discuss the actions performed on the patient, such as admission to the ICU, taking vital signs, recommending tests, etc.

In short, everything necessary in the patient scenario should be in your case presentation. You only need to avoid copying the patient scenario or case study word-for-word when writing your case presentation.

5. Diagnosis and Assessment

After the case presentation, you should explain the diagnosis. In other words, you should explain the condition, disease, or medical situation highlighted in the case presentation. For example, if the patient is a heavy smoker and he has COPD, it is at this point that you explain how COPD is linked to heavy smoking.

This is the section where you thoroughly discuss the disease process (pathophysiology) by highlighting the causes, symptoms, observations, and treatment methods. You should relate these to the patient’s status and give concrete evidence. You should describe the progression of the disease from when the client was admitted to a few hours or days after they were stabilized. Consider the first indication of the disease that prompted the patient to seek further medical assistance.  

Your paper should also elucidate the diagnostic tests that should be conducted and the differential diagnosis. Ensure that each is given a well-founded rationale.

When explaining the condition, go deep into the pathophysiology. Focus specifically on the patient’s risk factors. Ensure you get your explanation from recent nursing literature (peer-reviewed scholarly journals published in the last 5 years). And do not forget to cite all the literature you get your facts from.

In short, this section should explain the patient’s condition or suffering.

6. Nursing Intervention

After the diagnosis and nursing assessment section, your nursing case study analysis should have an intervention section. This section is also known as the nursing care planning section. What you are supposed to do in this section is to present a nursing care plan for the patient presented in the patient scenario. You should describe the nursing care plan and goals for the patient. Record all the anticipated positive changes and assess whether the care plan addresses the patient's condition.

A good nursing care plan details the patient’s chief complaints or critical problems. It then describes the causes of these problems using evidence from recent medical or nursing literature. It then details the potential intervention for each problem. Lastly, it includes goals and evaluation strategies for the measures. Most professors, predominantly Australian and UK professors, prefer if this section is in table format.

Some nursing professors regard the intervention section (or nursing care plan section) as the most critical part of a nursing case study. This is because this part details precisely how the student nurse will react to the patient scenario (which is what the nursing professors want to know). So, ensure you make a reasonable effort when developing this section to get an excellent grade.

7. Discussion and Recommendations

The intervention section in a nursing case study is followed by a discussion and recommendations section. In this section, you are supposed to expound on the patient scenario, the diagnosis, and the nursing care plan. You should also expound on the potential outcomes if the care plan is followed correctly. The discussion should also explain the rationale for the care plan or its significant bits.

Recommendations should follow the discussion. Recommendations usually involve everything necessary that can be done or changed to manage a patient’s condition or prevent its reoccurrence. Anything that enhances the patient’s well-being can be a recommendation. Just make sure your key recommendations are supported by evidence.

8. Conclusion

This is the second last section of a typical nursing case study. What you need here is to summarize the entire case study. Ensure your summary has at least the case presentation, the nursing assessment/diagnosis, the intervention, and the key recommendations.

At the very end of your conclusion, add a closing statement. The statement should wrap up the whole thing nicely. Try to make it as impressive as possible.

9. References

This is the last section of a nursing case study. No nursing case study is complete without a references section. You should ensure your case study has in-text citations and a references page.

And you should make sure both are written as recommended in the assignment. The style section is usually Harvard or APA. Follow the recommended style to get a good grade on your essay.

Step-By-Step Guide to Writing a Nursing Case Study

You know all the key sections you must include in a nursing case study. You also know what exactly you need to do in each section. It is time to learn how to write a nursing case study. The process detailed below should be easy to follow because you know the typical nursing case study structure.

1. Understand the Assignment

When given a nursing case study assignment, the first thing you need to do is to read. You need to read two pieces of information slowly and carefully.

First, you need to read the prompt itself slowly and carefully. This is important because the prompt will have essential bits of information you need to know, including the style, the format, the word count, and the number of references needed. All these bits of information are essential to ensure your writing is correct.

Second, you need to read the patient scenario slowly and carefully. You should do this to understand it clearly so that you do not make any mistakes in your analysis.

2. Create a Rough Outline

Failure to plan is a plan to fail. That is not what you are in it for anyway! In other words, do not fail to create an outline for your case study analysis. Use the template provided in this essay to create a rough outline for your nursing case study analysis.

Ensure your outline is as detailed as it can be at this stage. You can do light research to achieve this aim. However, this is not exactly necessary because this is just a rough outline.

3. Conduct thorough research

After creating a rough outline, you should conduct thorough research. Your research should especially focus on providing a credible and evidence-based nursing assessment of the patient problem(s). You should only use evidence from recent nursing or medical literature.

You must also conduct thorough research to develop an effective intervention or nursing care plan. So when researching the patient’s problem and its diagnosis, you should also research the most suitable intervention or do it right after.

When conducting research, you should always note down your sources. So for every piece of information you find, and what to use, you should have its reference.

After conducting thorough research, you should enhance your rough outline using the new information you have discovered. Make sure it is as comprehensive as possible.

4. Write your nursing case study

You must follow your comprehensive outline to write your case study analysis at this stage. If you created a good outline, you should find it very easy to write your nursing case study analysis.

If you did not, writing your nursing case study will be challenging. Whenever you are stuck writing your case study analysis paper, you should re-read the part where we explain what to include in every section of your analysis. Doing so will help you know what to write to continue your essay. Writing a nursing case study analysis usually takes only a few hours.

5. Reference your case study

After writing your case study, ensure you add all in-text citations if you have not already. And when adding them, you should follow the style/format recommended in the assignment prompt (usually APA or Harvard style).

After adding in-text citations exactly where they need to be and in the correct format, add all the references you have used in a references page. And you should add them correctly as per the rules of the style you were asked to use.

Do not forget to organize your references alphabetically after creating your references page.

6. Thoroughly edit your case study

After STEP 5 above, you need to edit your case study. You should edit it slowly and carefully. Do this by proofreading it twice. Proofread it slowly each time to discover all the grammar, style, and punctuation errors. Remove all the errors you find.

After proofreading your essay twice, recheck it to ensure every sentence is straightforward. This will transform your ordinary case study into an A-grade one. Of course, it must also have all the standard sections expected in a case study.

Recheck your case study using a grammarly.com or a similar computer grammar checker to ensure it is perfect. Doing this will help you catch and eliminate all the remaining errors in your work.

7. Submit your case study analysis

After proofreading and editing your case study analysis, it will be 100% ready for submission. Just convert it into the format it is required in and submit it.

 Nursing Case Study Tips and Tricks

The guide above and other information in this article should help you develop a good nursing case study analysis. Note that this guide focuses entirely on nursing case scenario-based papers, not research study-based nursing case studies. The tips and tricks in this section should help you ensure that the nursing case study analysis you create is excellent.

1. Begin early

The moment you see a nursing case study assignment prompt, identify a date to start writing it and create your own deadline to beat before the deadline stated in the prompt.

Do this and start writing your case study analysis early before your deadline. You will have plenty of time to do excellent research, develop an excellent paper, and edit your final paper as thoroughly as you want.

Most student nurses combine work and study. Therefore, if you decide to leave a nursing case study assignment until late to complete it, something could come up, and you could end up failing to submit it or submitting a rushed case study analysis.

2. Use the proper terminology

When writing an essay or any other academic paper, you are always encouraged to use the most straightforward language to make your work easy to understand. However, this is not true when writing a nursing case study analysis. While your work should certainly be easy to understand, you must use the right nursing terminology at every point where it is necessary. Failure to do this could damage your work or make it look less professional or convincing.

3. Avoid copying and pasting

If you are a serious nursing student, you know that copying and pasting are prohibited in assignments. However, sometimes copying and pasting can seem okay in nursing case studies. For example, it can seem okay to copy-paste the patient presentation. However, this is not okay. You are supposed to paraphrase the verbatim when presenting the patient presentation in your essay. You should also avoid copy-pasting information or texts directly. Every fact or evidence you research and find should be paraphrased to appear in your work. And it should be cited correctly.

4. Always ask for help if stuck

This is very important. Students are usually overwhelmed with academic work, especially a month or two to the end of the semester. If you are overwhelmed and think you will not have the time to complete your nursing case study analysis or submit a quality one, ask for help. Ask for help from a nursing assignment-help website like ours, and you will soon have a paper ready that you can use as you please. If you choose to get help from us, you will get a well-researched, well-planned, well-developed, and fully edited nursing case study.

5. Format your paper correctly

Many students forget to do proper formatting after writing their nursing case study analyses. Before you submit your paper, make sure you format it correctly. If you do not format your paper correctly, you will lose marks because of poor formatting. If you feel you are not very confident with your APA or Harvard formatting skills, send your paper to us to get it correctly formatted and ready for submission.

Now that you are all set up …

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We have experienced nursing experts available every day of the week to provide nursing assignment help. They can easily research and write virtually any nursing assignment, including a nursing case study. So, if the information provided in this article isn’t making you feel any optimistic about writing an excellent nursing case study, get help from us.

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Step-By-Step Guide to Writing a Nursing Case Study

You now know all the key sections you need to include in a nursing case study. You also know what exactly you need to do in each section. It is now time to know how exactly to write a nursing case study. The process detailed below should be easy to follow because you now know the typical structure of nursing case studies.

When given a nursing case study assignment, the first thing you need to do is to read. You need to read two pieces of information slowly and carefully.

First, you need to read the prompt itself slowly and carefully. This is important because the prompt will have important bits of information that you need to know, including the style, the format, the word count, and the number of references needed. All these bits of information are important to know to ensure what you are writing is the right thing.

Second, you need to read the patient scenario slowly and carefully. You should do this to understand it clearly so that you do not make any mistakes in your analysis.

• Create a rough outline

Failure to plan is a plan to fail. So do not fail to plan. In other words, do not fail to create an outline for your case study analysis. Use the template provided in this essay to create a rough outline for your nursing case study analysis.

Make sure your outline is as detailed as it can be at this stage. You can do light research to achieve this aim. However, this is not exactly necessary because this is just a rough outline.

• Conduct thorough research

After creating a rough outline, you should conduct thorough research. Your research should especially focus on providing a credible and evidence-based nursing assessment on the patient problem(s). The evidence you should use should only be from recent nursing or medical literature.

You will also need to conduct thorough research to come up with an effective intervention or nursing care plan. So when researching the patient’s problem and its diagnosis, you should also research the most suitable intervention or you should do it right after.

When conducting research, you should always note down your sources. So for every piece of information you find and what to use, you should have its reference.

After conducting thorough research, you should enhance your rough outline using the new pieces of information you have discovered. Make sure it is as comprehensive as possible.

• Write your nursing case study

At this stage, you simply need to follow your comprehensive outline to write your case study analysis. If you created a good outline, you should find it very easy to write your nursing case study analysis.

If you did not, you will find it difficult to write your nursing case study. Whenever you are stuck when writing your case study analysis paper, you should re-read the part of this article where we explain what to include in every section of your analysis. Doing so will help you know what exactly to write to continue with your essay. Writing a nursing case study analysis usually takes only a few hours.

• Reference your case study

After writing your case study, make sure you add all in-text citations if you had not added them already. And when adding them, you should make sure you follow the style/format recommended in the assignment prompt (usually APA or Harvard style).

After adding in-text citations exactly where they need to be and in the right format, add all the references you have used in a references page. And you should add them correctly as per the rules of the style you were asked to use.

Do not forget to organize your references alphabetically after you are done creating your references page.

• Thoroughly edit your case study

After STEP 5 above, you need to edit your case study. You should edit it slowly and carefully. Do this by proofreading it twice. Proofread it slowly each time to discover all the grammar, style, and punctuation errors. Remove all the errors you find.

After proofreading your essay twice, check it one more time to make sure every sentence is very easy to understand. This is what will transform your ordinary case study into an A-grade case study. Of course, it must also have all the standard sections expected in a case study.

Just to make sure your case study is absolutely perfect, check it one more time using a grammarly.com or a similar computer grammar checker. Doing this will help you catch and eliminate all the remaining errors in your work.

• Submit your case study analysis

After you are done proofreading and editing your case study analysis, it will be 100% ready for submission. Just convert it into the format it is required in and submit it.

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• Volume 21, Issue 1
• What is a case study?
• Article Text
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• Roberta Heale 1 ,
• Alison Twycross 2
• 1 School of Nursing , Laurentian University , Sudbury , Ontario , Canada
• 2 School of Health and Social Care , London South Bank University , London , UK
• Correspondence to Dr Roberta Heale, School of Nursing, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON P3E2C6, Canada; rheale{at}laurentian.ca

https://doi.org/10.1136/eb-2017-102845

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What is it?

Case study is a research methodology, typically seen in social and life sciences. There is no one definition of case study research. 1 However, very simply… ‘a case study can be defined as an intensive study about a person, a group of people or a unit, which is aimed to generalize over several units’. 1 A case study has also been described as an intensive, systematic investigation of a single individual, group, community or some other unit in which the researcher examines in-depth data relating to several variables. 2

Often there are several similar cases to consider such as educational or social service programmes that are delivered from a number of locations. Although similar, they are complex and have unique features. In these circumstances, the evaluation of several, similar cases will provide a better answer to a research question than if only one case is examined, hence the multiple-case study. Stake asserts that the cases are grouped and viewed as one entity, called the quintain . 6  ‘We study what is similar and different about the cases to understand the quintain better’. 6

The steps when using case study methodology are the same as for other types of research. 6 The first step is defining the single case or identifying a group of similar cases that can then be incorporated into a multiple-case study. A search to determine what is known about the case(s) is typically conducted. This may include a review of the literature, grey literature, media, reports and more, which serves to establish a basic understanding of the cases and informs the development of research questions. Data in case studies are often, but not exclusively, qualitative in nature. In multiple-case studies, analysis within cases and across cases is conducted. Themes arise from the analyses and assertions about the cases as a whole, or the quintain, emerge. 6

Benefits and limitations of case studies

If a researcher wants to study a specific phenomenon arising from a particular entity, then a single-case study is warranted and will allow for a in-depth understanding of the single phenomenon and, as discussed above, would involve collecting several different types of data. This is illustrated in example 1 below.

Using a multiple-case research study allows for a more in-depth understanding of the cases as a unit, through comparison of similarities and differences of the individual cases embedded within the quintain. Evidence arising from multiple-case studies is often stronger and more reliable than from single-case research. Multiple-case studies allow for more comprehensive exploration of research questions and theory development. 6

Despite the advantages of case studies, there are limitations. The sheer volume of data is difficult to organise and data analysis and integration strategies need to be carefully thought through. There is also sometimes a temptation to veer away from the research focus. 2 Reporting of findings from multiple-case research studies is also challenging at times, 1 particularly in relation to the word limits for some journal papers.

Examples of case studies

Example 1: nurses’ paediatric pain management practices.

One of the authors of this paper (AT) has used a case study approach to explore nurses’ paediatric pain management practices. This involved collecting several datasets:

Observational data to gain a picture about actual pain management practices.

Questionnaire data about nurses’ knowledge about paediatric pain management practices and how well they felt they managed pain in children.

Questionnaire data about how critical nurses perceived pain management tasks to be.

These datasets were analysed separately and then compared 7–9 and demonstrated that nurses’ level of theoretical did not impact on the quality of their pain management practices. 7 Nor did individual nurse’s perceptions of how critical a task was effect the likelihood of them carrying out this task in practice. 8 There was also a difference in self-reported and observed practices 9 ; actual (observed) practices did not confirm to best practice guidelines, whereas self-reported practices tended to.

Example 2: quality of care for complex patients at Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics (NPLCs)

The other author of this paper (RH) has conducted a multiple-case study to determine the quality of care for patients with complex clinical presentations in NPLCs in Ontario, Canada. 10 Five NPLCs served as individual cases that, together, represented the quatrain. Three types of data were collected including:

Review of documentation related to the NPLC model (media, annual reports, research articles, grey literature and regulatory legislation).

Interviews with nurse practitioners (NPs) practising at the five NPLCs to determine their perceptions of the impact of the NPLC model on the quality of care provided to patients with multimorbidity.

Chart audits conducted at the five NPLCs to determine the extent to which evidence-based guidelines were followed for patients with diabetes and at least one other chronic condition.

The three sources of data collected from the five NPLCs were analysed and themes arose related to the quality of care for complex patients at NPLCs. The multiple-case study confirmed that nurse practitioners are the primary care providers at the NPLCs, and this positively impacts the quality of care for patients with multimorbidity. Healthcare policy, such as lack of an increase in salary for NPs for 10 years, has resulted in issues in recruitment and retention of NPs at NPLCs. This, along with insufficient resources in the communities where NPLCs are located and high patient vulnerability at NPLCs, have a negative impact on the quality of care. 10

These examples illustrate how collecting data about a single case or multiple cases helps us to better understand the phenomenon in question. Case study methodology serves to provide a framework for evaluation and analysis of complex issues. It shines a light on the holistic nature of nursing practice and offers a perspective that informs improved patient care.

• Gustafsson J
• Calanzaro M
• Sandelowski M

Competing interests None declared.

Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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Chapter 7: Drafting and Writing a Paper

Writing Conclusions

Studies have shown that the human brain is more likely to remember items at the beginning and end of lists, presentations, and other texts. Recollection of the last thing a person reads or hears is called the recency effect – they’re remembering the most recent information they’ve encountered. This is why your conclusion is so important. It’s your final chance to make an impression on your readers.

Conclusions have two jobs :

• Leave readers with something to think about.
• Clarify why your topic matters to them and the larger community. Some people refer to a conclusion as the so what ? section of a text, because it helps readers understand the significance of your subject. See Figure 7.7 .

Figure 7.7 : The conclusion as the “so what?” section

What techniques can keep readers thinking about the topic at the end of a piece of writing?  Some of the same methods that work for the introduction also work for the conclusion, but the formula  is a little different:

You’re trying to end your piece, so don’t start making new claims or sharing new research. Instead, try to help readers see how they relate to your subject matter. Sometimes this means suggesting that the reader do something specific: a call to action. You could also end by raising questions related to your topic or by making suggestions for how this topic may develop in the future. Leaving readers with interesting ideas to think about is the key to a successful conclusion. See Film Clip 7.2 about writing conclusions.

Film Clip 7.2 : Writing conclusions [1:03]

See Table 7.6  for methods and examples for concluding your writing and giving your readers a sense of closure or an idea of what you would like them to think about or do next.

Table 7.6: Methods and examples for conclusions

  Student Tip

Optimizing Your Conclusion

Avoid introducing new ideas in the conclusion . But don’t simply copy and paste your thesis from earlier in the text. You’ve likely had a whole conversation in the text since the reader first encountered that thesis. Simply repeating it, or even replacing a few key words with synonyms, doesn’t acknowledge that bigger conversation. Instead, try pointing the reader back to the main idea in a new way.

Attribution statement

  Content from this page was remixed with our own original content and adapted, with editorial and organizational changes, from:

The Word on College Reading and Writing  by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted. Download for free at: https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/wrd/

The Scholarship of Writing in Nursing Education: 1st Canadian Edition Copyright © 2019 by Jennifer Lapum; Oona St-Amant; Michelle Hughes; Andy Tan; Arina Bogdan; Frances Dimaranan; Rachel Frantzke; and Nada Savicevic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Part 1: What is it and why?

This video introduces the concept of the case study and identifies how case studies differ to other written assignments.

The most important thing in writing up a case study report is that first, second, and thirdly: It is about the patient, not the condition nor the treatment. Students often put the emphasis on the condition or the treatment because the question usually focuses on this. While you need to explore these things, you still have to bring it back to the patient, and keep the patient central to the whole assignment.


We can understand if busy medical professionals start to see their patients in terms of a condition to be fixed, or a procedure to be performed. But ideally, we should remember that a patient is a person with a complex array of needs and preferences. This means that a simple textbook answer is not always best for them.


In your career, you will need to negotiate adjustments and anticipate problems particular to the patient. It does not make sense to discuss a condition in isolation from the individual. Each patient has their own unique kaleidoscope of history, personality type, fears, medical challenges, needs during recovery, so forth and so on. You need to see their condition or their treatment overall, as part of the whole person. Writing a case study teaches you to do that, if you don’t explore the condition or treatment as part of a holistic system, you case study becomes theoretical, it becomes another essay.


Let’s compare the case study to the essays you might have already written. The case study in nursing explores a particular patient’s situation, while your essays will more likely have focused on disease, a treatment, a concept, or a system. A case study is very grounded in the real and the now, even if the patient is a hypothetical invention. It still provides some fairly authentic experience with dealing with an individual patient.


Essays, on the other hand, tend to be literature-based. Of course, you need to do a lot of research and reading for your case study too, but the difference is for a case study you must always view and evaluate the information in the context of your patient. So in a case study, you need to show that you can find and apply information to you patient. For an essay you need to look at the information itself, pull it apart and evaluate it for its own sake.

So even if the question looks like an essay, don’t be distracted. There is still an expectation to relate this to the patient. It is possible to explore the content and theory in a generalised way throughout the assignment, but the beginning of the assignment (and the beginning of each paragraph, in fact) should foreground you're patient and their relationship to this theory.

Part 2: Research and writing

This video provides tips on how to research and structure paragraphs in order to keep a patient centred emphasis in the writing.

An essay, as opposed to a case study, usually has an question or a thesis which defines the boundaries of what you research, You aim to keep it within those parameters. and you delve as deeply as you can into the material. It loses focus if you include stuff outside of the topic. 


With a case study, however, your focus is the patient so you need to cast your net widely and generously at first to find something that is relevant to them. And then when you find something relevant, you need to research deeply. So, doing a good case study report involves a lot more reading than you might think. You’ll have to research both generally and deeply.

There can be a lot of research, and fairly unguided research involved in a case study. Don’t assume it’s like a reading comprehension exercise, the problems are not always clearly defined and the solutions have not necessarily been covered in lectures. Think of your case study as a mystery puzzle with a few clues scattered through it. 


In reality, patients do not arrive with instructions, so it’s up to the professional to notice that it is obvious and to think outside of the box. It is up to you to anticipate problems for the patient, it is up to you to follow through with the threads of any clues, and to see if they offer any valuable information, and these may only be hinted at indirectly. With years of nursing experience, the clues and danger signs get easier to spot, but it is very challenging for a beginner if you don’t know what to look for, and that is why the broad reading is important. 


So, every piece of information about your patient is valuable. When the information is given in the assignment, the facts are not random facts, they have usually been included for a reason, so use them and use them as much as you can. You may, on the other hand, have been told very little in the assignment and be expected to elicit the information yourself from the patient, through a blog, or a question-and-answer session. Asking for more details about their own condition just gives you more details about their condition, and unless you have some reasoning in mind for asking about that, more details per se is usually not that very helpful. 


Instead, ask about things that may affect the treatment or recovery; ask about things that may complicate matters. Smoking, relevant illnesses, lack of family support, strenuous lifestyles or jobs are all factors that may generate important decisions about how the patient is treated or cared for. The secret to keeping it about the patient is to keep them foremost into the discussion. You do this by making them the subject of each paragraph, and you do this by making them feature in the topic sentence: at the beginning and, if possible, a summary sentence at the end. 


In the middle of a paragraph, you have more flexibility to talk about the procedure or the condition in a more general way. But, at the end of the day, you need to remind us of how this is important for your patient. If you don’t, your writing becomes an essay rather than a case study. And if you feel like you’re being asked to research and to discuss material that is not directly relevant to your patient, you can make it relevant by at least explaining why it is not relevant. Remember, everything you write about should be in relation to your patient. 


So remember, it is all about the patient, keep everything relevant to the patient; keep the patient in mind throughout the research and the writing. Explore and discuss what the question requires, but theory for the sake of theory should be avoided. Your mission is to find the best solutions available for your patient, and develop the best understanding that you can of your patient. 


You have now complete the Case Study module. We hope you have enjoyed the content. For more study skill resources, please visit the RMIT Learning Lab.

• Writing a case study

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Writing a case report in 10 steps

• Related content
• Peer review
• Victoria Stokes , foundation year 2 doctor, trauma and orthopaedics, Basildon Hospital ,
• Caroline Fertleman , paediatrics consultant, The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust
• victoria.stokes1{at}nhs.net

Victoria Stokes and Caroline Fertleman explain how to turn an interesting case or unusual presentation into an educational report

It is common practice in medicine that when we come across an interesting case with an unusual presentation or a surprise twist, we must tell the rest of the medical world. This is how we continue our lifelong learning and aid faster diagnosis and treatment for patients.

It usually falls to the junior to write up the case, so here are a few simple tips to get you started.

First steps

Begin by sitting down with your medical team to discuss the interesting aspects of the case and the learning points to highlight. Ideally, a registrar or middle grade will mentor you and give you guidance. Another junior doctor or medical student may also be keen to be involved. Allocate jobs to split the workload, set a deadline and work timeframe, and discuss the order in which the authors will be listed. All listed authors should contribute substantially, with the person doing most of the work put first and the guarantor (usually the most senior team member) at the end.

Getting consent

Gain permission and written consent to write up the case from the patient or parents, if your patient is a child, and keep a copy because you will need it later for submission to journals.

Information gathering

Gather all the information from the medical notes and the hospital’s electronic systems, including copies of blood results and imaging, as medical notes often disappear when the patient is discharged and are notoriously difficult to find again. Remember to anonymise the data according to your local hospital policy.

Write up the case emphasising the interesting points of the presentation, investigations leading to diagnosis, and management of the disease/pathology. Get input on the case from all members of the team, highlighting their involvement. Also include the prognosis of the patient, if known, as the reader will want to know the outcome.

Coming up with a title

Discuss a title with your supervisor and other members of the team, as this provides the focus for your article. The title should be concise and interesting but should also enable people to find it in medical literature search engines. Also think about how you will present your case study—for example, a poster presentation or scientific paper—and consider potential journals or conferences, as you may need to write in a particular style or format.

Background research

Research the disease/pathology that is the focus of your article and write a background paragraph or two, highlighting the relevance of your case report in relation to this. If you are struggling, seek the opinion of a specialist who may know of relevant articles or texts. Another good resource is your hospital library, where staff are often more than happy to help with literature searches.

How your case is different

Move on to explore how the case presented differently to the admitting team. Alternatively, if your report is focused on management, explore the difficulties the team came across and alternative options for treatment.

Finish by explaining why your case report adds to the medical literature and highlight any learning points.

Writing an abstract

The abstract should be no longer than 100-200 words and should highlight all your key points concisely. This can be harder than writing the full article and needs special care as it will be used to judge whether your case is accepted for presentation or publication.

Discuss with your supervisor or team about options for presenting or publishing your case report. At the very least, you should present your article locally within a departmental or team meeting or at a hospital grand round. Well done!

Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ’s policy on declaration of interests and declare that we have no competing interests.

📕 Studying HQ

10 nursing case study analysis examples [format + structure], bob cardens.

• August 6, 2022

If you are a nursing student, you may be asked to write a case study analysis. This can be a daunting task, but it is possible to do if you follow some simple steps. Here we include Nursing Case Study Analysis Examples to help you get started.

First, read the case study and make sure you understand the situation. Next, identify the key players involved and their role in the case. Finally, analyze the data presented and draw your own conclusions.

Writing a case study analysis can be challenging, but it is also an excellent way to learn more about nursing care. By taking the time to understand the situation and identify the key players, you will be able to gain valuable insights that can be applied to future cases.

What You'll Learn

10 Nursing Case Study Analysis Examples

Nursing case study analysis format and structure.

When it comes to writing a case study analysis, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, there is a general format and structure that you can follow to ensure your analysis is well-organized and flows smoothly. Here are the basics:

A nursing case study is a detailed study of a patient that is encountered by a nurse. The purpose of the case study is to provide a comprehensive view of the patient’s health condition and history. Nurse practitioners use case studies to enhance their ability to care for patients by providing them with a more complete picture of the patient’s health. Nurse practitioners may use different formats for their nursing case studies. However, all case studies should include certain key elements. These key elements include:

As a nursing practitioner, you will be responsible for analyzing patient cases and providing care based on your findings. There are key elements that you must take into account when performing a case analysis in order to ensure that you are providing the best possible care for your patients.

• The first element is the patient’s history. You will need to obtain a complete medical history in order to understand the background of the case and identify any potential risk factors.
• Next, you will need to perform a physical examination of the patient. This will help you to identify any physical signs or symptoms that may be related to the case.
• You will also need to order and review any laboratory tests or imaging studies that have been performed on the patient. These results can provide valuable information about the patient’s condition.
• Once you have gathered all of this information, you will need to start piecing together the puzzle to form a diagnosis. This process will involve synthesizing all of the information you have gathered and making a determination about what is causing the patient’s symptoms.
• Once you have made a diagnosis, you can start developing a treatment plan. This plan should be tailored specifically to the needs of the individual patient.

When writing a nursing case study, nurse practitioners should use a clear and concise format. The format should be easy to follow and understand. Nurse practitioners should also include all of the key elements in their nursing case studies. Nursing Case Study Analysis Examples

How to write a case study assignment

A case study is an in-depth analysis of a real-life situation or incident, as a way to illustrate content and theory to students. It is usually presented as a written report, but can also be done in the form of a presentation, video, or multimedia production.

Case studies are used in many different disciplines, including business, law, psychology, nursing, social work, and medical sciences.

A case study assignment is a type of paper that requires you to analyze a real-life or fictional situation and offer possible solutions. This can be a challenging task, but if you follow some basic guidelines, you can write a successful case study assignment.

Here are some tips on how to write a case study assignment:

• Read the case study carefully. Make sure you understand the situation and the problem that needs to be solved.
• Research the subject matter. You will need to have a good understanding of the relevant theories and concepts in order to offer possible solutions.
• Read the case study carefully. This may seem obvious, but it is important to get a clear understanding of the situation before you start writing. Make sure you have all the relevant facts and figures to hand before you start.
• Identify the key issues. Once you have read and understood the case study, you need to identify the key issues that it raises. These will form the basis of your analysis.
• Research the law/theory applicable to the key issues. Once you have identified the key issues, you need to research the law or theory that applies to them. This will help you to form your arguments and conclusions.
• Write your paper. Be sure to present your analysis in a clear and concise manner. Your paper should be well-organized and well-written

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How to Write a Nursing Case Study [Examples, Format, & Tips]

✒️ case study topics for nursing students.

• 🩺️ The Basics
• 💉 Nursing Case Study: Writing Rules

📑 Nursing Case Study Format

📝 nursing case study examples.

• ⏱️ Tips on Quick Writing

🔗 References

A nursing case study is an in-depth analysis of the health situation of an individual patient.

The analysis is based on:

• medical history,
• other relevant criteria.

In most cases, you will be asked to diagnose to suggest the first aid measures. Alternatively, nurses can be asked to describe a patient in their practice and analyze the correctness of their actions. The purpose is to recreate a realistic hospital setting in the classroom and make students reflect on the treatment process from diagnosis to treatment.

• Anaphylactic shock in a teenager with peanut allergy.
• Non-compliant patient with diabetes: ways to improve adherence.
• Telehealth intervention for managing chronic disease.
• Communication strategies to address vaccine hesitancy in a rural community.
• Postpartum hemorrhage in a new mother: risk factors and interventions.
• Ways to improve recognition of dehydration in aging adults.
• The effective ways of maintaining work-life balance for nurses.
• Cultural competency in providing care to migrants and refugees.
• Why should every patient’s medical history remain confidential?
• The use of massage therapy in relieving pain.
• The challenges facing medicine in 2024.
• How does modern technology impact nursing?
• The significance of regular follow-up appointments with the healthcare provider.
• What are the primary treatments for postpartum depression?
• The use of steroids in cancer treatment.

🩺️ Nursing Case Study: What Is It About?

As a nursing student, you should understand that no two patients are the same. Each has a unique clinical record and condition. And although most nursing case study tasks will ask you to suggest a diagnosis or treatment, your focus should rest on the patient.

Busy nurses can sometimes see their patients in the framework of an illness to be treated or a procedure to be fulfilled. But you should do your best to remember that each patient is a living person with a complex set of needs, emotions, and preferences. A ready-made textbook answer is rarely the best solution for them. Moreover, it rarely helps to analyze a condition in isolation from the patient.

In a nursing case study, your task is to analyze a disorder or illness as a part of a specific medical situation. If you don’t do that, your case study becomes an essay (theoretical and generalized). It is the difference between the two assignment types.

Once again:

A case study in nursing emphasizes the particular patient’s condition. Meanwhile, a nursing essay will explore the disease, prevention methods, treatment, or possible consequences of the disease.

Even if the case is hypothetical, it should focus on the suggested reality. On the other hand, essays are usually literature-based. You are expected to do some reading for a case study too, but you should research and present the information within the context of the patient. In simple terms, a case study uses information in the actual application, and an essay uses it for the sake of generalized suggestions.

💉 How to Write a Nursing Case Study: 3 Key Rules

• Do the fieldwork. Before setting your hands to writing, you should collect all of the available materials: clinical notes, results of medical tests, x-rays, sickness records, etc. Use this information to draw a clear picture of the story. It is always helpful to ask yourself, “What is interesting or unusual about this patient’s condition?” In the course of writing, recall your answer from time to time not to get lost in words. It will help you to convey a definite and appropriate message.

• Stick to the facts. A nursing case study should be an accurate description of the actual situation. Restrain from speculating about the inherent mechanisms of the illness or the general treatment methodology. In fact, students are rarely prepared enough to discuss pathology and physiology. Leave this to reputable experts. The best result you can provide in a case study is an honest account of clinical events.
• Concentrate on the patients and their progress. Remember that a nursing case study is a story of a patient’s progress and not a narrative about their nurse. No matter how efficiently the medical specialist acted, it would be incorrect to add any praiseful remarks. The optimal way is to tell the story in its logical and time order and outline the result of treatment. In this case, the outcome will speak for itself.

Introduction

It is where you should tell the reader why this case is interesting . Place your study in a social or historical context. If, during your preliminary research, you found some similar cases, describe them briefly. If you had a hard time diagnosing the patient or your proposed treatment is complicated, mention it here. Don’t forget to cite the references to each of them!

The introduction should not exceed several paragraphs. The purpose is to explain why the reader will benefit from reading about the case.

Case Presentation

• Why did the patient seek medical help? (Describe the symptoms.)
• What is known about the patient? (Mention only the information that influenced your diagnosis. Otherwise, explain why some information is irrelevant to the diagnosis.)
• Stick to the narrative form. (Make it a story!)
• What are the variants for diagnosis? (Make a shortlist of possible disorders that fall under the patient’s symptoms. But make it specific: not just “pneumonia” but “bilateral pneumonia,” for example. Besides, this point is optional.)
• What were the results of your clinical examination? (If you saw the patient in person.)
• Explain the results of lab tests. (The words “positive” or “negative” are not always clear.)

Actions and Their Results

This section describes the care that has been provided and/or is planned. You can answer the following questions in narrative form . If some information is missing, skip the point:

• What preliminary actions have been taken? (Be specific: not just “wound care,” but “wound cleaning and dressing.”)
• How long has the patient been under care?
• Has the previous treatment given any visible result?
• Why was it suspended or finished?
• Why did the patient withdraw from treatment (if applicable)?
• How could you improve the patient’s condition if the result was negative?
• If the disease is incurable (like in the case of diabetes), which activities would stabilize the patient’s condition?
• If possible, include the patient’s reports of their own physical and mental health.

In this section, you should identify your questions about the case. It is impossible to answer all of them in one case study. Likewise, it is unreal to suggest all the relevant hypotheses explaining the patient’s condition. Your purpose is to show your critical thinking and observation skills. Finalize your conclusion by summarizing the lessons you learned from the nursing case study.

Whenever you directly or indirectly cite other sources or use data from them, add these books and documents to the references list. Follow the citation style assigned by your professor. Besides, 15 items are already too much. Try to make a list of up to 10. Using textbooks as references can be viewed as bad manners.

Include all the tables, photographs, x-rays, figures, and the journal of medication usage in this section. Unless required otherwise in the assignment, start each item from a new page, naming them “Appendix A,” “Appendix B…”.

Below you will find case study samples for various topics. Using them as a reference will improve your writing. If you need more ideas, you are welcome to use our free title-generating tool .

• Case study: healing and autonomy.
• Sara’s case study: maternal and child nursing.
• COPD medical diagnostics: case study.
• Care standards in healthcare institutions: case study.
• Acute bacterial prostatitis: case study analysis.
• Alzheimer disease: the patient case study.
• The treatment of foot ulcers in diabetic patients: case study.
• Hypertension: C.D’s case study.
• Myocardial infarction: cardiovascular case study.
• Major depressive disorder case.
• Case study of the patient with metabolic syndrome .
• Pulmonary analysis case study .
• Older adults isolation: Case study .
• The holistic care: Case study .
• Obesity in the Elderly: The Case Study.
• Medical ethics: Case study .
• Patient diagnoses and treatment: Case study .
• Obesity case study: Mr. C .
• Nurse Joserine: Case study problems .
• Chronic stable angina: Case study .
• Fetal abnormality: Case study .
• Researching SOAP: Case study .
• Case study for a patient with hormonal disorders .
• “Walking the Tightrope”: A case study analysis .
• ARNP approach: Case study analysis .
• Case study on biomedical ethics in the Christian narrative .
• Thermal injury: Case study .
• Ethical dilemma in nursing: Case study .
• Asthma: A case study of the patient .
• Asthma discharge plan: Mini case study .
• Case study: An ethics of euthanasia .
• Case study: Head-to-toe assessment steps .
• Pain management strategies: Case study .
• Case study: Inflammatory bowel disease .
• Sleep deprivation and insomnia: The case study .
• The case study of a heart failure .
• Porphyria cutanea tarda: Disease case study .
• Case study: Hardy Hospital case summary .
• Obesity and its complications: Case study .
• Angina disease case study .
• Nursing ethics case study .
• Case study of a patient: Assessment and treatment plan .
• Cecile case study: Mrs. J .
• Nursing power in the emergency department: Case study .
• Heart failure case study: Mrs. J .
• Application of ethics in nursing: Case study .
• Sudden visual impairment: Case study .
• Epidemiology case study: Outbreak at Watersedge — Public health discovery game .
• Wellness of senior citizens: Case study .
• Healthcare organization evaluation: Case study of Banner Health .

⏱️ Bonus: Tips on Writing a Case Study in Record Time

Need to prepare a case study on nursing or in another field? Below you’ll find a collection fo tips that will help you do it as quickly as possible!

3 Shortcuts for a Quick Start

If you’re about to start writing a case study, you should check yourself if you’re not doing any of the following:

• spending too much time on selecting a topic;
• reading too much before selecting a topic;
• making conclusions too early – creating bias.

Instead of killing time doing the three useless things discussed above, consider these:

• Choose approach. Note that there are 2 major approaches to case studies: the analytical approach (investigating possible reasons without making any conclusions) and problem-oriented approach (focusing on a particular problem and investigating it).
• Skim some sources (DON’T READ THEM). Select several sources. Simply skim abstracts and conclusions.
• Start making notes early. Simply reading is ineffective unless you’re lucky to have a phenomenal memory. Always make notes of any useful arguments.

4 Shortcuts Not to Get Stuck in the Middle

Even if you kick started your case study, it’s too early to celebrate it. Consider the following traps in the middle of the project:

• Watch the structure. The classic logical structure is your formula of success. It will help you move from one point to another without the unnecessary procrastination:
• Respect the logic. Make your case study flow – make logical transitions between the different parts and make it consistent. Avoid changing your position throughout the paper.
• Be detail-oriented. Any trifle deserves attention when you write a case study.
• Avoid bias. Be sure that all your opinions are based on the specific arguments form the case study. Avoid pouring your biased views into the project.

3 Shortcuts for a Happy Ending

• Offer a realistic solution. College case study is a rehearsal of real-life situations. Take the responsibility for your suggestions.
• Keep your conclusion short. Avoid repeating the details and don’t include any new information.
• Consider creating a Power Point. If your task is not only writing a case study, but also presenting it – why not create PowerPoint slides to help you?

As the last step on your way to a perfect nursing case study, prepare the title page. Its format usually depends on the professor’s requirements. But if you know the citation style, our Title Page Maker is a perfect tool to apply the right formatting and accelerate the process. And if you have any know-how on how to write a medical case study, you are very welcome to share it with other students in the comments below.

❓ Nursing Case Study: FAQ

What is a case study in nursing.

A nursing case study explores the condition of a patient. It is based on previous clinical records, lab reports, and other medical and personal information. A case study focuses on the patient and describes the treatment that was (or should be) applied and its (expected) outcome.

How to Write a Nursing Case Study?

• Collect the bulk of data available about the patient.
• Read literature about the diagnosed condition.
• Focus on the individual patient and their symptoms.
• Describe the situation and outline its development in time.
• Analyze the actions of the medical personnel that have been done.
• Plan further treatment of the patient.

Why Are Case Studies Good for Nursing Students?

Nursing case studies offer you a priceless opportunity to gain experience of different patient conditions and cure methods without visiting the clinic. You can think about whether the proposed treatment was appropriate or wrong and suggest a better solution. And the best thing, your teacher will indicate your mistakes (and no patient will be hurt in the process).

Why Are Case Studies Important in Nursing?

• You learn to distinguish the relevant data and analyze it.
• You learn to ask the right questions.
• You learn to evaluate the severity of symptoms.
• You learn to make better diagnoses.
• You train your critical thinking in terms of treatment methods
• Case studies are in-class simulators of authentic atmosphere in a clinical ward.
• What is a case study? | Evidence-Based Nursing
• Case Studies – Johns Hopkins Medicine
• Case Study Research Design in Nursing
• Case study report for Nursing | Learning Lab – RMIT University
• Case Study or Nursing Care Study? – jstor

Research Paper Analysis: How to Analyze a Research Article + Example

Film analysis: example, format, and outline + topics & prompts.

How to Write a Case Study Paper for Nursing

A well-written case study paper for a nursing program requires some planning and consideration. All too often, students begin writing before they complete appropriate, preliminary steps. Ideally, before you start a paper, you should already have determined the focus and format of it. You will then follow this up with a fact-gathering step in which you will gather and collate the content of your paper. Finally, there is the construction/execution step in which you will write the paper in a standard format (such as the APA style) and edit it.

A nursing case study paper contains several sections that fall into three categories:

1. The status of the patient

• Demographic data
• Medical History
• Current diagnosis and treatment

2. The nursing assessment of the patient

• Vital signs and test results
• Nursing observations (i.e., range of motion, mental state)

3. Current Care Plan and Recommendations

• Details of the nursing care plan (including nursing goals and interventions)
• Evaluation of the current care plan
• Recommendations for changes in the current care plan

Patient Status

The first portion of the case study paper will talk about the patient — who they are, why they are being included in the study, their demographic data (i.e., age, race), the reason(s) they sought medical attention and the subsequent diagnosis. It will also discuss the role that nursing plays in the care of this patient.

Next, thoroughly discuss any disease process. Make sure you outline causes, symptoms, observations, and how preferred treatments can affect nursing care. Also, describe the history and progression of the disease. Some important questions for you to answer are: 1) What were the first indications that there was something wrong, and 2) What symptoms convinced the patient to seek help?

Nursing Assessment

When you are discussing the nursing assessment of the patient, describe the patientΓÇÖs problems in terms of nursing diagnoses. Be specific as to why you have identified a particular diagnosis. For example, is frequent urination causing an alteration in the patientΓÇÖs sleep patterns? The nursing diagnoses you identify in your assessment will help form the nursing care plan.

Current Care Plan and Recommendations for Improvement

Describe the nursing care plan and goals, and explain how the nursing care plan improves the quality of the patientΓÇÖs life. What positive changes does the nursing care plan hope to achieve in the patientΓÇÖs life? How will the care plan be executed? Who will be responsible for the delivery of the care plan? What measurable goals will they track to determine the success of the plan?

The final discussion should be your personal recommendations. Based on the current status of the patient, the diagnosis, prognosis, and the nursing care plan, what other actions do you recommend can be taken to improve the patientΓÇÖs chances of recovery? You must support your recommendations with authoritative sources and cite appropriately per APA style guidelines.

Creating a well-written nursing case study paper doesnΓÇÖt need to be a grueling challenge. It can be gratifying, and itΓÇÖs good practice for assessing patients while out in the field, too. Keep in mind that your instructor will not only grade you on the quality of the content of your paper but by how you apply the APA style, as well. If you find that you are spending too much time formatting your paper, consider using formatting software as a helpful tool to ensure accuracy, so you donΓÇÖt lose points on a well-written paper because of some formatting errors.

For more information about APA or MLA formats, contact us today.

David Plaut

David Plaut is the founder of Reference Point Software (RPS). RPS offers a complete suite of easy-to-use formatting template products featuring MLA and APA style templates, freeing up time to focus on substance while ensuring formatting accuracy. 

Reference Point Software is not associated with, endorsed by, or affiliated with the American Psychological Association (APA) or with the Modern Language Association (MLA).

Tags: medical writing tips , nurse writing tips , reference point software

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Nursing Case Study Examples and Solutions

• Premium Academia
• August 17, 2023
• Nursing Essay Examples

NursingStudy.org is your ultimate resource for nursing case study examples and solutions. Whether you’re a nursing student, a seasoned nurse looking to enhance your skills, or a healthcare professional seeking in-depth case studies, our comprehensive collection has got you covered. Explore our extensive category of nursing case study examples and solutions to gain valuable insights, improve your critical thinking abilities, and enhance your overall clinical knowledge.

Comprehensive Nursing Case Studies

Discover a wide range of comprehensive nursing case study examples and solutions that cover various medical specialties and scenarios. These meticulously crafted case studies offer real-life patient scenarios, providing you with a deeper understanding of nursing practices and clinical decision-making processes. Each case study presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities for learning, making them an invaluable resource for nursing education and professional development.

• Nursing Case Study Analysis [10 Examples & How-To Guides] What is a case study analysis? A case study analysis is a detailed examination of a specific real-world situation or event. It is typically used in business or nursing school to help students learn how to analyze complex problems and make decisions based on limited information.
• State three nursing diagnoses using taxonomy of North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) that are appropriate, formatted correctly, prioritized, and are based on the case study. NUR 403 Week 2 Individual Assignment Case Study comprises: Resources: The case study found on p. 131 in Nursing Theory and the Case Study Grid on the Materials page of the student website Complete the Case Study Grid. List five factors of patient history that demonstrates nursing needs. 
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Pediatric Nursing Case Studies

In this section, delve into the world of pediatric nursing through our engaging and informative case studies. Gain valuable insights into caring for infants, children, and adolescents, as you explore the complexities of pediatric healthcare. Our pediatric nursing case studies highlight common pediatric conditions, ethical dilemmas, and evidence-based interventions, enabling you to enhance your pediatric nursing skills and deliver optimal care to young patients.

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Mental Health Nursing Case Study Examples 

Mental health nursing plays a crucial role in promoting emotional well-being and providing care for individuals with mental health conditions. Immerse yourself in our mental health nursing case studies, which encompass a wide range of psychiatric disorders, therapeutic approaches, and psychosocial interventions. These case studies offer a holistic view of mental health nursing, equipping you with the knowledge and skills to support individuals on their journey to recovery.

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• Pathways Mental Health Case Study – Review evaluation and management documentation for a patient and perform a crosswalk of codes – Solution
• Analyze salient ethical and legal issues in psychiatric-mental health practice
• SOAP notes for Mental Health Examples
• compare and contrast two mental health theories
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Geriatric Nursing Case Studies

As the population ages, the demand for geriatric nursing expertise continues to rise. Our geriatric nursing case studies focus on the unique challenges faced by older adults, such as chronic illnesses, cognitive impairments, and end-of-life care. By exploring these case studies, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of geriatric nursing principles, evidence-based gerontological interventions, and strategies for promoting optimal health and well-being in older adults.

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• Public Health Nursing Roles and Responsibilities in Disaster Response – Assignment 2 Solution
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• How can healthcare facilities establish a culture of safety – Solution
• Discuss the types of consideration a nurse must be mindful of while performing a health assessment on a geriatric patient as compared to a middle-aged adult – Solution
• Promoting And Protecting Vulnerable Populations – Describe what is meant by vulnerable populations and explain strategies you, as the public health nurse, could use to best facilitate the achievement of healthful outcomes in this population? 

Community Health Nursing Case Studies

Community health nursing plays a vital role in promoting health, preventing diseases, and advocating for underserved populations. Dive into our collection of community health nursing case studies, which explore diverse community settings, public health issues, and population-specific challenges. Through these case studies, you’ll gain insights into the role of community health nurses, interdisciplinary collaboration, health promotion strategies, and disease prevention initiatives.

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Critical Care Nursing Case Study Examples 

Critical care nursing demands swift decision-making, advanced technical skills, and the ability to provide intensive care to acutely ill patients. Our critical care nursing case studies encompass a range of high-acuity scenarios, including trauma, cardiac emergencies, and respiratory distress. These case studies simulate the fast-paced critical care environment, enabling you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, enhance your clinical judgment, and deliver exceptional care to critically ill patients.

• Nursing Case Study Parkinsons Disease
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Maternal and Child Health Nursing Case Study Examples

The field of maternal and child health nursing requires specialized knowledge and skills to support the health and well-being of women and children throughout their lifespan. Explore our collection of maternal and child health nursing case studies, which encompass prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care, and pediatric nursing. These case studies provide a comprehensive view of maternal and child health, allowing you to develop expertise in this essential area of nursing practice.

You can also check out Patient Safety in High-Tech Settings PICOT Questions Examples

Surgical Nursing Case Studies

Surgical nursing involves caring for patients before, during, and after surgical procedures. Our surgical nursing case studies cover a wide range of surgical specialties, including orthopedics, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal surgeries. Delve into these case studies to gain insights into preoperative assessment, perioperative management, and postoperative care. By examining real-life surgical scenarios, you’ll develop a comprehensive understanding of surgical nursing principles and refine your skills in providing exceptional care to surgical patients.

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Obstetric Nursing Case Study

Obstetric nursing focuses on providing care to women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. Our obstetric nursing case studies explore various aspects of prenatal care, labor and delivery, and postpartum recovery. Gain valuable knowledge about common obstetric complications, evidence-based interventions, and strategies for promoting maternal and fetal well-being. These case studies will enhance your obstetric nursing skills and prepare you to deliver compassionate and competent care to expectant mothers.

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Nursing Ethics Case Study

Ethical dilemmas are an inherent part of nursing practice. Our nursing ethics case studies shed light on complex ethical issues that nurses encounter in their daily work. Explore thought-provoking scenarios involving patient autonomy, confidentiality, end-of-life decisions, and resource allocation. By examining these case studies, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of ethical principles, ethical decision-making frameworks, and strategies for navigating ethical challenges in nursing practice.

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Health Promotion Case Study

Community health promotion plays a crucial role in improving the health and well-being of populations. Our community health promotion case studies highlight successful initiatives aimed at preventing diseases, promoting healthy lifestyles, and addressing social determinants of health. Explore strategies for community engagement, health education, and collaborative interventions that make a positive impact on the well-being of individuals and communities.

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• Integrate evidence from research and theory into discussions of practice competencies, health promotion and disease prevention strategies, quality improvement, and safety standards.
• Discuss various theories of health promotion, including Pender’s Health Promotion Model, the Health Belief Model, the Transtheoretical Theory, and the Theory of Reasoned Action.
• What strategies, besides the use of learning styles, can a nurse educator consider when developing tailored individual care plans, or for educational programs in health promotion?
• Describe health promotion for Pregnant women
• Identify a health problem or need for health promotion for a particular stage in the life span of a population from a specific culture in your area. Choose one of the Leading Health Indicators (LHI) priorities from Healthy People 2020: https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/Leading-Health-Indicators
•   A description of a borrowed theory (expectancy-value theory and social cognitive theory) that could be applied to improve health promotion patient education in primary care clinic. Is this borrowed theory appropriate?
• How has health promotion changed over time
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Nursing Leadership Case Studies

Nursing leadership is essential for driving positive change and ensuring high-quality patient care. Our nursing leadership case studies examine effective leadership strategies, change management initiatives, and interprofessional collaboration in healthcare settings. Gain insights into the qualities of successful nurse leaders, explore innovative approaches to leadership, and learn how to inspire and motivate your team to achieve excellence in nursing practice.

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• The purpose of this assignment is to examine the impact of contemporary challenges in care delivery facing nursing leadership. Select and research a major issue in the delivery of care facing nurse leaders today and write a 1,250-1,500 word paper addressing the following:
• One nursing theory will be presented as a framework to resolve a problem occurring within one of the professional areas of leadership, education, informatics, healthcare policy or advance clinical practice.  The same nursing theory selected in Assignment One may be used to resolve the identified problem. 
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At NursingStudy.org, we strive to provide you with a comprehensive collection of nursing case study examples and solutions that align with the best practices recommended by YOAST and RankMath. By exploring these diverse case studies, you’ll enhance your clinical knowledge, critical thinking abilities, and overall understanding of nursing practice. Take advantage of this valuable resource and elevate your nursing skills to new heights.

Remember, success in nursing begins with knowledge and continues with lifelong learning. Explore our nursing case study examples and solutions today and embark on a journey of professional growth and excellence.

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• J Can Chiropr Assoc
• v.52(4); 2008 Dec

Guidelines to the writing of case studies

Dr. brian budgell.

* Département chiropratique, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 3351, boul des Forges, Trois-Rivières, Qc, Canada G9A 5H7

Dr. Brian Budgell, DC, PhD, JCCA Editorial Board

• Introduction

Case studies are an invaluable record of the clinical practices of a profession. While case studies cannot provide specific guidance for the management of successive patients, they are a record of clinical interactions which help us to frame questions for more rigorously designed clinical studies. Case studies also provide valuable teaching material, demonstrating both classical and unusual presentations which may confront the practitioner. Quite obviously, since the overwhelming majority of clinical interactions occur in the field, not in teaching or research facilities, it falls to the field practitioner to record and pass on their experiences. However, field practitioners generally are not well-practised in writing for publication, and so may hesitate to embark on the task of carrying a case study to publication. These guidelines are intended to assist the relatively novice writer – practitioner or student – in efficiently navigating the relatively easy course to publication of a quality case study. Guidelines are not intended to be proscriptive, and so throughout this document we advise what authors “may” or “should” do, rather than what they “must” do. Authors may decide that the particular circumstances of their case study justify digression from our recommendations.

Additional and useful resources for chiropractic case studies include:

• Waalen JK. Single subject research designs. J Can Chirop Assoc 1991; 35(2):95–97.
• Gleberzon BJ. A peer-reviewer’s plea. J Can Chirop Assoc 2006; 50(2):107.
• Merritt L. Case reports: an important contribution to chiropractic literature. J Can Chiropr Assoc 2007; 51(2):72–74.

Portions of these guidelines were derived from Budgell B. Writing a biomedical research paper. Tokyo: Springer Japan KK, 2008.

General Instructions

This set of guidelines provides both instructions and a template for the writing of case reports for publication. You might want to skip forward and take a quick look at the template now, as we will be using it as the basis for your own case study later on. While the guidelines and template contain much detail, your finished case study should be only 500 to 1,500 words in length. Therefore, you will need to write efficiently and avoid unnecessarily flowery language.

These guidelines for the writing of case studies are designed to be consistent with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” referenced elsewhere in the JCCA instructions to authors.

After this brief introduction, the guidelines below will follow the headings of our template. Hence, it is possible to work section by section through the template to quickly produce a first draft of your study. To begin with, however, you must have a clear sense of the value of the study which you wish to describe. Therefore, before beginning to write the study itself, you should gather all of the materials relevant to the case – clinical notes, lab reports, x-rays etc. – and form a clear picture of the story that you wish to share with your profession. At the most superficial level, you may want to ask yourself “What is interesting about this case?” Keep your answer in mind as your write, because sometimes we become lost in our writing and forget the message that we want to convey.

Another important general rule for writing case studies is to stick to the facts. A case study should be a fairly modest description of what actually happened. Speculation about underlying mechanisms of the disease process or treatment should be restrained. Field practitioners and students are seldom well-prepared to discuss physiology or pathology. This is best left to experts in those fields. The thing of greatest value that you can provide to your colleagues is an honest record of clinical events.

Finally, remember that a case study is primarily a chronicle of a patient’s progress, not a story about chiropractic. Editorial or promotional remarks do not belong in a case study, no matter how great our enthusiasm. It is best to simply tell the story and let the outcome speak for itself. With these points in mind, let’s begin the process of writing the case study:

• Title: The title page will contain the full title of the article. Remember that many people may find our article by searching on the internet. They may have to decide, just by looking at the title, whether or not they want to access the full article. A title which is vague or non-specific may not attract their attention. Thus, our title should contain the phrase “case study,” “case report” or “case series” as is appropriate to the contents. The two most common formats of titles are nominal and compound. A nominal title is a single phrase, for example “A case study of hypertension which responded to spinal manipulation.” A compound title consists of two phrases in succession, for example “Response of hypertension to spinal manipulation: a case study.” Keep in mind that titles of articles in leading journals average between 8 and 9 words in length.
• Other contents for the title page should be as in the general JCCA instructions to authors. Remember that for a case study, we would not expect to have more than one or two authors. In order to be listed as an author, a person must have an intellectual stake in the writing – at the very least they must be able to explain and even defend the article. Someone who has only provided technical assistance, as valuable as that may be, may be acknowledged at the end of the article, but would not be listed as an author. Contact information – either home or institutional – should be provided for each author along with the authors’ academic qualifications. If there is more than one author, one author must be identified as the corresponding author – the person whom people should contact if they have questions or comments about the study.
• Key words: Provide key words under which the article will be listed. These are the words which would be used when searching for the article using a search engine such as Medline. When practical, we should choose key words from a standard list of keywords, such as MeSH (Medical subject headings). A copy of MeSH is available in most libraries. If we can’t access a copy and we want to make sure that our keywords are included in the MeSH library, we can visit this address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/meshbrowser.cgi

A narrative abstract consists of a short version of the whole paper. There are no headings within the narrative abstract. The author simply tries to summarize the paper into a story which flows logically.

A structured abstract uses subheadings. Structured abstracts are becoming more popular for basic scientific and clinical studies, since they standardize the abstract and ensure that certain information is included. This is very useful for readers who search for articles on the internet. Often the abstract is displayed by a search engine, and on the basis of the abstract the reader will decide whether or not to download the full article (which may require payment of a fee). With a structured abstract, the reader is more likely to be given the information which they need to decide whether to go on to the full article, and so this style is encouraged. The JCCA recommends the use of structured abstracts for case studies.

Since they are summaries, both narrative and structured abstracts are easier to write once we have finished the rest of the article. We include a template for a structured abstract and encourage authors to make use of it. Our sub-headings will be:

• Introduction: This consists of one or two sentences to describe the context of the case and summarize the entire article.
• Case presentation: Several sentences describe the history and results of any examinations performed. The working diagnosis and management of the case are described.
• Management and Outcome: Simply describe the course of the patient’s complaint. Where possible, make reference to any outcome measures which you used to objectively demonstrate how the patient’s condition evolved through the course of management.
• Discussion: Synthesize the foregoing subsections and explain both correlations and apparent inconsistencies. If appropriate to the case, within one or two sentences describe the lessons to be learned.
• Introduction: At the beginning of these guidelines we suggested that we need to have a clear idea of what is particularly interesting about the case we want to describe. The introduction is where we convey this to the reader. It is useful to begin by placing the study in a historical or social context. If similar cases have been reported previously, we describe them briefly. If there is something especially challenging about the diagnosis or management of the condition that we are describing, now is our chance to bring that out. Each time we refer to a previous study, we cite the reference (usually at the end of the sentence). Our introduction doesn’t need to be more than a few paragraphs long, and our objective is to have the reader understand clearly, but in a general sense, why it is useful for them to be reading about this case.

The next step is to describe the results of our clinical examination. Again, we should write in an efficient narrative style, restricting ourselves to the relevant information. It is not necessary to include every detail in our clinical notes.

If we are using a named orthopedic or neurological test, it is best to both name and describe the test (since some people may know the test by a different name). Also, we should describe the actual results, since not all readers will have the same understanding of what constitutes a “positive” or “negative” result.

X-rays or other images are only helpful if they are clear enough to be easily reproduced and if they are accompanied by a legend. Be sure that any information that might identify a patient is removed before the image is submitted.

At this point, or at the beginning of the next section, we will want to present our working diagnosis or clinical impression of the patient.

It is useful for the reader to know how long the patient was under care and how many times they were treated. Additionally, we should be as specific as possible in describing the treatment that we used. It does not help the reader to simply say that the patient received “chiropractic care.” Exactly what treatment did we use? If we used spinal manipulation, it is best to name the technique, if a common name exists, and also to describe the manipulation. Remember that our case study may be read by people who are not familiar with spinal manipulation, and, even within chiropractic circles, nomenclature for technique is not well standardized.

We may want to include the patient’s own reports of improvement or worsening. However, whenever possible we should try to use a well-validated method of measuring their improvement. For case studies, it may be possible to use data from visual analogue scales (VAS) for pain, or a journal of medication usage.

It is useful to include in this section an indication of how and why treatment finished. Did we decide to terminate care, and if so, why? Did the patient withdraw from care or did we refer them to another practitioner?

• Discussion: In this section we may want to identify any questions that the case raises. It is not our duty to provide a complete physiological explanation for everything that we observed. This is usually impossible. Nor should we feel obligated to list or generate all of the possible hypotheses that might explain the course of the patient’s condition. If there is a well established item of physiology or pathology which illuminates the case, we certainly include it, but remember that we are writing what is primarily a clinical chronicle, not a basic scientific paper. Finally, we summarize the lessons learned from this case.
• Acknowledgments: If someone provided assistance with the preparation of the case study, we thank them briefly. It is neither necessary nor conventional to thank the patient (although we appreciate what they have taught us). It would generally be regarded as excessive and inappropriate to thank others, such as teachers or colleagues who did not directly participate in preparation of the paper.

A popular search engine for English-language references is Medline: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

• Legends: If we used any tables, figures or photographs, they should be accompanied by a succinct explanation. A good rule for graphs is that they should contain sufficient information to be generally decipherable without reference to a legend.
• Tables, figures and photographs should be included at the end of the manuscript.
• Permissions: If any tables, figures or photographs, or substantial quotations, have been borrowed from other publications, we must include a letter of permission from the publisher. Also, if we use any photographs which might identify a patient, we will need their written permission.

In addition, patient consent to publish the case report is also required.

Running Header:

• Name, academic degrees and affiliation

Name, address and telephone number of corresponding author

Disclaimers

Statement that patient consent was obtained

Sources of financial support, if any

Key words: (limit of five)

Abstract: (maximum of 150 words)

• Case Presentation
• Management and Outcome

Introduction:

Provide a context for the case and describe any similar cases previously reported.

Case Presentation:

• Introductory sentence: e.g. This 25 year old female office worker presented for the treatment of recurrent headaches.
• Describe the essential nature of the complaint, including location, intensity and associated symptoms: e.g. Her headaches are primarily in the suboccipital region, bilaterally but worse on the right. Sometimes there is radiation towards the right temple. She describes the pain as having an intensity of up to 5 out of ten, accompanied by a feeling of tension in the back of the head. When the pain is particularly bad, she feels that her vision is blurred.
• Further development of history including details of time and circumstances of onset, and the evolution of the complaint: e.g. This problem began to develop three years ago when she commenced work as a data entry clerk. Her headaches have increased in frequency in the past year, now occurring three to four days per week.
• Describe relieving and aggravating factors, including responses to other treatment: e.g. The pain seems to be worse towards the end of the work day and is aggravated by stress. Aspirin provides some relieve. She has not sought any other treatment.
• Include other health history, if relevant: e.g. Otherwise the patient reports that she is in good health.
• Include family history, if relevant: e.g. There is no family history of headaches.
• Summarize the results of examination, which might include general observation and postural analysis, orthopedic exam, neurological exam and chiropractic examination (static and motion palpation): e.g. Examination revealed an otherwise fit-looking young woman with slight anterior carriage of the head. Cervical active ranges of motion were full and painless except for some slight restriction of left lateral bending and rotation of the head to the left. These motions were accompanied by discomfort in the right side of the neck. Cervical compression of the neck in the neutral position did not create discomfort. However, compression of the neck in right rotation and extension produced some right suboccipital pain. Cranial nerve examination was normal. Upper limb motor, sensory and reflex functions were normal. With the patient in the supine position, static palpation revealed tender trigger points bilaterally in the cervical musculature and right trapezius. Motion palpation revealed restrictions of right and left rotation in the upper cervical spine, and restriction of left lateral bending in the mid to lower cervical spine. Blood pressure was 110/70. Houle’s test (holding the neck in extension and rotation for 30 seconds) did not produce nystagmus or dizziness. There were no carotid bruits.
• The patient was diagnosed with cervicogenic headache due to chronic postural strain.

Management and Outcome:

• Describe as specifically as possible the treatment provided, including the nature of the treatment, and the frequency and duration of care: e.g. The patient undertook a course of treatment consisting of cervical and upper thoracic spinal manipulation three times per week for two weeks. Manipulation was accompanied by trigger point therapy to the paraspinal muscles and stretching of the upper trapezius. Additionally, advice was provided concerning maintenance of proper posture at work. The patient was also instructed in the use of a cervical pillow.
• If possible, refer to objective measures of the patient’s progress: e.g. The patient maintained a headache diary indicating that she had two headaches during the first week of care, and one headache the following week. Furthermore the intensity of her headaches declined throughout the course of treatment.
• Describe the resolution of care: e.g. Based on the patient’s reported progress during the first two weeks of care, she received an additional two treatments in each of the subsequent two weeks. During the last week of care she experienced no headaches and reported feeling generally more energetic than before commencing care. Following a total of four weeks of care (10 treatments) she was discharged.

Discussion:

Synthesize foregoing sections: e.g. The distinction between migraine and cervicogenic headache is not always clear. However, this case demonstrates several features …

Summarize the case and any lessons learned: e.g. This case demonstrates a classical presentation of cervicogenic headache which resolved quickly with a course of spinal manipulation, supportive soft-tissue therapy and postural advice.

References: (using Vancouver style) e.g.

1 Terret AGJ. Vertebrogenic hearing deficit, the spine and spinal manipulation therapy: a search to validate the DD Palmer/Harvey Lillard experience. Chiropr J Aust 2002; 32:14–26.

Legends: (tables, figures or images are numbered according to the order in which they appear in the text.) e.g.

Figure 1: Intensity of headaches as recorded on a visual analogue scale (vertical axis) versus time (horizontal axis) during the four weeks that the patient was under care. Treatment was given on days 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 22 and 25. Headache frequency and intensity is seen to fall over time.

Nursing Case Study

Ai generator.

ScienceDirect posted a nursing ethics case study where an end-stage prostate cancer patient, Mr. Green, confided to nursing staff about his plan to commit suicide. The patient asked the nurse to keep it a secret. The ethical problem is whether the nurse should tell the health care team members about the patient’s thought without his permission. The best ethical decision for this nursing case study was to share this critical information with other health care professionals, which was the action the nurse took. The team adhered to the proper self-harm and suicide protocol. The appropriate team performed a palliative therapy. As a result, the patient didn’t harm himself and died peacefully a few months after he was discharged.

What Is a Nursing Case Study? A nursing case study is a detailed study of an individual patient. Through this type of research, you can gain more information about the symptoms and the medical history of a patient. It will also allow you to provide the proper diagnoses of the patient’s illness based on the symptoms he or she experienced and other affecting factors. Nursing students usually perform this study as part of their practicum, making it an essential experience because, through this research methodology , they can apply the lessons they have learned from school. The situation mentioned above was an excellent example of a nursing case study.

Nursing Case Study Format

1. introduction.

Purpose: Briefly introduces the case study, including the main health issue or condition being explored. Background: Provides context for the patient scenario, outlining the significance of the case in nursing practice. Objectives: Lists the learning objectives or goals that the case study aims to achieve.

2. Patient Information

Demographics: Age, gender, ethnicity, and relevant personal information. Medical History: Past medical history, including any chronic conditions, surgeries, or significant health events. Current Health Assessment: Presents the patient’s current health status, including symptoms, vital signs, and results from initial examinations.

3. Case Description

Clinical Presentation: Detailed description of the patient’s presentation, including physical examination findings and patient-reported symptoms. Diagnostic Findings: Summarizes diagnostic tests that were performed, including lab tests, imaging studies, and other diagnostic procedures, along with their results. Treatment Plan: Outlines the initial treatment provided to the patient, including medications, therapies, surgeries, or other interventions.

4. Nursing Care Plan

Nursing Diagnoses: Identifies the nursing diagnoses based on the assessment data. Goals and Outcomes: Establishes short-term and long-term goals for the patient’s care, including expected outcomes. Interventions: Describes specific nursing interventions planned or implemented to address each nursing diagnosis and achieve the stated goals. Evaluation: Discusses the effectiveness of the nursing interventions, including patient progress and any adjustments made to the care plan.

5. Analysis

Critical Analysis: Analyzes the case in depth, considering different aspects of patient care, decision-making processes, and the application of nursing theories and principles. Reflection: Reflects on the nursing practice, lessons learned, and how the case study has impacted the understanding and application of nursing knowledge.

6. Conclusion

Summary: Provides a concise summary of the key points from the case study, including the patient outcome and the nursing care impact. Implications for Practice: Discusses the implications of the case for nursing practice, including any changes to practice or policy that could improve patient care. Recommendations: Offers recommendations for future care or areas for further study based on the case study findings.

Examples of Nursing Case Study

Management of Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) Introduction: A 58-year-old male with a history of hypertension and smoking presents to the emergency department with chest pain. This case study explores the nursing management for patients with AMI.   Patient Information: Demographics: 58-year-old male, smoker. Medical History: Hypertension, no previous diagnosis of heart disease. Current Health Assessment: Reports severe chest pain radiating to his left arm, sweating, and nausea.   Case Description: Clinical Presentation: Patient appeared in distress, clutching his chest. Diagnostic Findings: ECG showed ST-elevation in anterior leads. Troponin levels were elevated. Treatment Plan: Immediate administration of aspirin, nitroglycerin, and morphine for pain. Referred for emergency coronary angiography.   Nursing Care Plan: Nursing Diagnoses: Acute pain related to myocardial ischemia. Goals: Relieve pain and prevent further myocardial damage. Interventions: Monitoring vital signs, administering prescribed medications, and providing emotional support. Evaluation: Pain was managed effectively, and the patient was stabilized for angiography.   Analysis: The timely nursing interventions contributed to stabilizing the patient’s condition, showcasing the critical role nurses play in acute care settings.   Conclusion: This case highlights the importance of quick assessment and intervention in patients with AMI, emphasizing the nurse’s role in pain management and support.

Managing Type 1 Diabetes in a Pediatric Patient Introduction: A 10-year-old female diagnosed with type 1 diabetes presents for a routine check-up. This case study focuses on the nursing care plan for managing diabetes in pediatric patients.   Patient Information: Demographics: 10-year-old female. Medical History: Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes six months ago. Current Health Assessment: Well-controlled blood glucose levels, but expresses difficulty with frequent insulin injections.   Case Description: Clinical Presentation: Patient is active, engaging in school activities but struggles with diabetes management. Diagnostic Findings: HbA1c is 7.2%, indicating good control. Treatment Plan: Insulin therapy, carbohydrate counting, and regular blood glucose monitoring.   Nursing Care Plan: Nursing Diagnoses: Risk for unstable blood glucose levels. Goals: Maintain blood glucose within target range and increase patient comfort with diabetes management. Interventions: Education on insulin pump use, dietary advice, and coping strategies. Evaluation: Patient showed interest in using an insulin pump and understood dietary recommendations.   Analysis: This case emphasizes the importance of education and emotional support in managing chronic conditions in pediatric patients.   Conclusion: Effective management of type 1 diabetes in children requires a comprehensive approach that includes education, technological aids, and psychological support.

Elderly Care for Alzheimer’s Disease Introduction: An 82-year-old female with Alzheimer’s disease presents with increased confusion and agitation. This case study examines the complexities of caring for elderly patients with Alzheimer’s.   Patient Information: Demographics: 82-year-old female. Medical History: Alzheimer’s disease, osteoarthritis. Current Health Assessment: Increased confusion, agitation, and occasional aggression.   Case Description: Clinical Presentation: Patient exhibits signs of advanced Alzheimer’s with memory loss and disorientation. Diagnostic Findings: Cognitive tests confirm the progression of Alzheimer’s. Treatment Plan: Non-pharmacological interventions for agitation, memory aids, and safety measures in the home.   Nursing Care Plan: Nursing Diagnoses: Impaired memory related to Alzheimer’s disease. Goals: Reduce agitation and prevent harm. Interventions: Use of calming techniques, establishing a routine, and environmental modifications. Evaluation: Agitation was reduced, and the patient’s safety was improved through environmental adjustments.   Analysis: The case underscores the need for tailored interventions to manage Alzheimer’s symptoms and improve the quality of life for the elderly.   Conclusion: Nursing care for Alzheimer’s patients requires a multifaceted approach focusing on safety, symptom management, and patient dignity.

Nursing Case Study Topics with Samples to Edit & Download

• Telehealth Nursing
• Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing
• Geriatric Nursing Care
• Palliative and End-of-Life Care
• Pediatric Nursing
• Emergency and Critical Care Nursing
• Chronic Disease Management
• Nursing Ethics and Patient Rights
• Infection Control and Prevention
• Oncology Nursing
• Nursing Leadership and Management
• Cultural Competence in Nursing
• Substance Abuse and Addiction Nursing
• Technological Innovations in Nursing
• Nursing Education and Training

Nursing Case Study Examples & Templates

1. nursing case study template.

2. Free Nursing Student Care Plan Template

3. Nursing Action Case Study Example

4. Hospital Nursing Care Case Study Example

5. Printable Nursing Health Case Study Example

professays.com

6. Fundamentals of Nursing Case Study Example

secure-ecsd.elsevier.com

7. Sample Nursing Case Study Example

caresearch.com.au

8. Nursing Research Case Study Example

9. Standard Nursing Case Study Example

resourcecenter.ovid.com

10. Nursing Disability Case Study Example

careerswales.com

11. Nursing care Patients Case Study Example

12. School of Nursing Case Study Example

ebn.bmj.com

13. Evaluation of Nursing Care Case Study Example

philadelphia.edu

Nursing Case Study Segments

Typically, a nursing case study contains three main categories, such as the items below.

1. The Status of a Patient

In this section, you will provide the patient’s information, such as medical history, and give the current patient’s diagnosis, condition, and treatment. Always remember to write down all the relevant information about the patient. Other items that you can collect in this stage are the reasons for the patient to seek medical care and the initial symptoms that he or she is experiencing. After that, based on the gathered information, you will explain the nature and cause of the illness of the patient.

2. The Nursing Assessment of the Patient

In this stage, you will need to prepare your evaluation of the patient’s condition. You should explain each observation that you have collected based on the vital signs and test results. You will also explain each nursing diagnosis that you have identified and determine the proper nursing care plan for the patient.

3. The Current Care Plan and Recommendations

Describe the appropriate care plan that you can recommend to the patient based on the diagnosis, current status, and prognosis in detail, including how the care plan will affect his or her life quality. If needed, you can also evaluate the patient’s existing care plan and give recommendations to enhance it. It is also crucial to cite relevant authoritative sources that will support your recommendations .

Objectives of Nursing Case Study

Nursing case studies are integral educational tools that bridge theoretical knowledge with practical application in patient care. They serve several key objectives essential for the development of nursing students and professionals. Here are the primary objectives of nursing case studies:

1. Enhance Critical Thinking and Clinical Reasoning

Case studies encourage nurses to analyze complex patient scenarios, make informed decisions, and apply critical thinking skills to solve problems. They simulate real-life situations, requiring nurses to evaluate data, consider multiple outcomes, and choose the best course of action.

2. Improve Diagnostic Skills

Through the detailed analysis of patient information, symptoms, and diagnostic results, nursing case studies help improve diagnostic skills. They allow nurses to practice interpreting clinical data to identify patient conditions and understand the underlying causes of symptoms.

3. Facilitate Application of Theoretical Knowledge

Nursing case studies provide a direct bridge between classroom learning and clinical practice. They offer a practical venue for applying theoretical knowledge about anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and nursing theories to real-world patient care situations.

4. Promote Understanding of Comprehensive Patient Care

These studies emphasize the importance of holistic care, considering the physical, emotional, social, and psychological aspects of patient well-being. Nurses learn to develop comprehensive care plans that address all facets of a patient’s health.

5. Encourage Reflective Practice and Self-Assessment

Reflecting on case study outcomes enables nurses to evaluate their own decision-making processes, clinical judgments, and actions. This self-assessment promotes continuous learning and professional growth by identifying areas for improvement.

6. Foster Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Case studies often involve scenarios that require collaboration among healthcare professionals from various disciplines. They teach nurses the value of teamwork, communication, and the integration of different expertise to achieve optimal patient outcomes.

7. Enhance Patient Education and Advocacy Skills

By working through case studies, nurses improve their ability to educate patients and families about health conditions, treatment plans, and preventive measures. They also learn to advocate for their patients’ needs and preferences within the healthcare system.

8. Prepare for Real-Life Challenges

Nursing case studies prepare students and new nurses for the unpredictability and challenges of real-life clinical settings. They provide safe, controlled environments to practice responses to emergencies, ethical dilemmas, and complex patient needs without the risk of actual harm.

Steps in Nursing Process

Whether you are handling a patient with schizophrenia, pneumonia, diabetes, appendicitis, hypertension, COPD, etc, you will need to follow specific steps to ensure that you are executing the critical nursing process.

1. Assess the Patient

The first step of the nursing process requires critical thinking skills as it involves gathering both subjective and objective data. Subjective data includes verbal statements that you can collect from the patient or caregiver. In contrast, objective information refers to measurable and tangible data, such as vital signs, height, weight, etc. You can also use other sources of information, such as electronic health records, and friends that are in direct contact with the patient.

2. Diagnose the Patient

This critical step will help you in the next steps, such as planning and implementation of patient care. In this step, you will formulate a nursing diagnosis by applying clinical judgment. As a nurse, the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) will give you an up-to-date nursing diagnosis list, which will allow you to form a diagnosis based on the actual health problem.

3. Plan for a Proper Patient Care Plan

This part is where you will plan out the appropriate care plan for the patient. You will set this goal following the evidence-based practice (EDP) guidelines. The goal you will set should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely ( SMART ).

4. Implement the Plan

In this stage, you can execute the plan that you have developed in the previous step. The implementation may need interventions such as a cardiac monitor, medication administration, etc.

5. Evaluate the Results

It is crucial to remember that every time the team does an intervention, you must do a reassessment to ensure that the process will lead to a positive result. You may need to reassess the patient depending on his progress, and the care plan may be modified based on the reassessment result.

Where to find nursing case studies?

Nursing case studies can be found in a variety of academic, professional, and medical resources. Here are some key places to look for nursing case studies:

• Academic Journals : Many academic journals focus on nursing and healthcare and publish case studies regularly. Examples include the “Journal of Clinical Nursing,” “Nursing Case Studies,” and “American Journal of Nursing.”
• University and College Libraries : Many academic institutions provide access to databases and journals that contain nursing case studies. Libraries often have subscriptions to these resources.
• Online Medical Libraries : Websites like PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Wiley Online Library offer a vast collection of nursing and medical case studies.
• Professional Nursing Organizations : Organizations such as the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the National League for Nursing (NLN) often provide resources, including case studies, for their members.
• Nursing Education Websites : Websites dedicated to nursing education, such as Lippincott NursingCenter and Nurse.com, often feature case studies for educational purposes.
• Government Health Websites : The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) sometimes publish case studies related to public health nursing and disease outbreaks.
• Nursing Textbooks and eBooks : Many nursing textbooks and eBooks include case studies to illustrate key concepts and scenarios encountered in practice.
• Online Nursing Forums and Communities : Forums and online communities for nursing professionals may share or discuss case studies as part of their content.
• Conference Proceedings : Nursing and healthcare conferences often include presentations of case studies. Many of these are published in the conference proceedings, which may be accessible online.

Carrying out a nursing case study can be a delicate task since it puts the life of a person at stake. Thus, it requires a thorough investigation. With that said, it is essential to gain intensive knowledge about this type of study. Today, we have discussed an overview of how to conduct a nursing case study. However, if you think that you are having problems with your writing skills , we recommend you to consider looking for an essay writing service from the experts in the nursing department to ensure that the output follows the appropriate writing style and terminology.

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

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How to Write A Conclusion For My Nursing Essay Assignment?

At the very outset, let’s begin by understanding the essay terms. You need to decide whether your essay is going to be analytical or reflective. The essay terms indicate whether you want to write an essay by comparing and contrasting various topics. Is the essay is a critical analysis of a topic that you been learning in the past few months or years? If you get hold of the essay terms, you are better placed to write that essay.

How to Write a Nursing Essay?

If you have to write a nursing essay, you need to understand a few fundamental concepts of good nursing. You must explain what you think an excellent is nurse and compare and contrast various types of nurses or nursing. You may also have to critically analyze good nursing.

While the nursing essay remains the same throughout the entire essay, the way you approach each concept and the way you structure your essay will depend on the essay terms. Understanding essay terms will empower you to execute the essay terms with finesse.

Tips on Writing a Nursing Essay: Outstanding Writers’ Guide:

Get a handful of tips on how to get started with your first nursing assessment. First thing first, Plan an intriguing structure of the essay. Before you embark upon writing, it is imperative to curate the relevant information wisely. Begin by selecting the powerful elements of the topic for the Nursing essay that you will focus on.

• You need to provide a glimpse of the Nurse’s life and career.
• Start your essay with a firm note to set the tone of the readers’ expectations.
• Do not forget to summarize the key points in the conclusion.
• Reinforce the purpose of the essay in the conclusion.

Nursing essay introduction:

You may have written a good nursing essay but may have missed on attacking the actual topic that you are writing for, you may have missed to compare and contrast nursing.

• You need to stick to the essay terms right from the introduction paragraph of your essay.
• A strong yet concise introduction makes a good start to both your nursing essay and assignment.
• An introduction provides a holistic idea about the topic or the person you are going to talk about.
• The introduction must not be too weak, long, short, or does not shed any light on the actual essay topic that it is going to be about.

Conclusion About Nursing Essay

Your nursing essay paper must have a conclusion paragraph.

• Writing the conclusion paragraph is about reinforcing your concepts through rewording or reiterating the concepts you have covered earlier.
• Summing up the key points is critical when you are writing the conclusion of your nursing essay paper.

Important Thing About Write a Effective Nursing Essay Assignment Conclusion:

• Review your Definition’s main Points
• Close attention Getter
• Tie your Conclusion back to the introduction
• Close with an Explanation of how your definition has effected you.

How to Write The Best Nursing Conclusion Paragraph?

• You need to summarize the points in the conclusion that you want to highlight.
• Avoid coining or introducing new information or topic in the conclusion’s paragraph.
• Using the conclusion to remind and remember the primary purpose of the nursing essay.
• If the essay is about a nursing school application, adopt a personal touch.

Also, make sure you remind the readers about your additional information on the topic.

Nursing Essay Conclusion Examples for Student

• The nursing conclusion is a retelling of the key concepts touched upon through the essay. You may like to mention a few data points, answers, and evidence to reinforce your point of view or stance.
• You may like to show in the conclusion of how your approach was crucial to arrive at the resolution.
• Add a final comment in the conclusion.

Here is an example of a conclusion that light gives you the same idea about conclusion writing.

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Sample Example:

“The start of the university-educated for nurses has allowed nurses to keep updated with continuous medical advances. Their roles have changed throughout recent years. Their working conditions have improved and their wages. The ability to assess patients has improved. However, the ability to provide understanding care has slowly abolished because of sound bases that we base university education on.”

Nursing Essay Examples and Format

5 essential elements of your essay introduction are the aim, purpose, relevance, implication, and all relevant definitions.

• You need to cite in the description box, an actual real-life working example of a nursing essay.
• The final tip is to follow the structure of Personal, Professional, Political, and social for your nursing essay.
• In the relation to the concept of a good nurse, you need to write your personal view of what a good nurse is.
• The professional explains what the documents indicate what makes a good nurse.
• The political aspect of a good nurse comprises the view and the reports which states what a good nurse would involve data, statistics, real-life examples, etc.
• The last is social. This explains how society views nurses and nursing as a profession. Society may influence, implicate, or change the way the nurses behave.
• The last thing to remember is that you need to link your paragraphs very well through a logical flow of the progression of the topic.

Assignment Sample for Nursing Student:

Nursing provides holistic care for the health services disabled, injured, and the dying during the treatment or recovery phase. Their role is to assist the medical experts as needed.

Nursing Assignment Requirements:

• Understanding the role of nursing in a healthcare center
• Understand the detailed explanation of the nursing procedure
• Decide on the premise of the assignment
• Explain nursing is relevant as community service
• Carry out thorough research before writing the assignment
• Explain nursing in the assignment
• Use case studies with relevant examples
• Cite facts and figures, statistical data, and graph from approved sources.

Also Check out – Free Assignment Samples & Examples

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How to Write a Thorough Nursing Case Study

Table of Contents

Case studies are common requirements for nursing schools and healthcare institutions. But learning how to write a nursing case study can be challenging. If you’re stuck on how to get started, we’ve got your back! In this article, we’ll be guiding you through all the necessary elements you should include ensuring your study is clear and thorough. We’ll also share some key tips to make your work more professional. When done right, a case study can enhance your knowledge base and help identify better healthcare practices. And this can greatly improve overall healthcare standards.

What is a Nursing Case Study?

A nursing case study is a detailed assessment of a patient’s medical history, diagnosis, and treatment .   It seeks to identify the causes of an illness or injury and analyze how they have been addressed. This helps assess the overall quality of care given. These case studies aim to understand the cause of certain illnesses, how to prevent them, and how to best treat them. The data gathered from these studies can inform policy changes and develop effective strategies for improving patient outcomes.

How to Write a Nursing Case Study

Writing a nursing case study requires thoughtful consideration of relevant information and resources. You must select a single subject, conduct research on it, interview experts, analyze the data collected, and present your findings. That may seem like a lot, but let us break it down for you. Here’s a look at the key elements that your case study structure should cover:

A title page should be concise yet informative, helping readers understand what the focus of the study is. It includes the following elements:

• Title of the case study
• Author’s name
• Any collaborators or contributors to the work
• An abstract summarizing the contents

An abstract is a summary of the content of the case study, which outlines its purpose, methods used, results, and conclusions. It aims to provide readers with a clear overview of the studied topic without reading through the entire document.

Introduction

The introduction sets the stage for the case study by introducing the main subject and providing background information. It should include the research question(s) or hypothesis that will guide the investigation.

Case Presentation

Your case presentation needs to include as much relevant detail as possible while maintaining clarity and brevity. It details the following:

• Patient’s history
• Physical exam findings
• Laboratory values
• Imaging studies
• Treatments received
• Clinical course

Pathophysiology

Pathophysiology discusses how diseases affect normal body processes and functions. Try to explain the pathology behind the observed symptoms to understand how they can be managed. This may involve discussing anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, genetics, pharmacology, immunology, and pathogenesis.

Nursing Care Plan

A nursing care plan should provide an overview of the patient’s current condition, including any pre-existing medical conditions. It should also outline the desired goals for the patient’s health, such as stabilizing vital signs or reducing pain levels. The plan will usually include a list of interventions to be carried out by nurses. It can also outline monitoring steps to evaluate whether these interventions are effective in achieving the desired outcomes.

Discussion and Recommendations

This section provides an opportunity to discuss any issues or suggestions related to the patient’s case study. Experienced professionals can provide valuable input regarding the best strategies to improve the treatment outcome.

The conclusion is where you can summarize all the findings from the study and provide your final thoughts regarding the results. It should draw attention to any successes achieved during the investigation and identify areas for improvement. Your conclusion should also make clear how the results relate to the overall objective of providing quality care for the patient.

The references section is where sources used throughout the case study are listed. These may include textbooks, reports, journal entries, and other forms of documentation that were consulted for the project. All entries must adhere to proper citation standards (e.g., APA style) and appear alphabetically according to the author’s name.

Final Words

Learning how to write a nursing case study has far more applications than just fulfilling a course requirement. These case studies can be invaluable tools in advocating for improved healthcare for individuals and communities. Hopefully, this quick guide has helped you better understand how to write a more comprehensive and clearer work. Good luck!

Abir Ghenaiet

Abir is a data analyst and researcher. Among her interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a humanitarian and educator, she actively supports women in tech and promotes diversity.

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How to write the conclusion of your case study

You worked on an amazing UX project. You documented every detail and deliverable and when the time came, you began to write a UX case study about it. In the case study, you highlighted how you worked through a Design Thinking process to get to the end result; so, can you stop there and now move on to the next thing? Well, no! There’s just one more bit left to finish up and make the perfect case study. So, get ready; we will now explore how you can write the perfect conclusion to wrap it all up and leave a lasting great impression.

Every start has an end – we’re not just repeating the famous quote here, because for case studies, a proper end is your last and final chance to leave a lasting great (at the very least, good) impression with whoever is reading your work (typically, recruiters!). Many junior UX designers often forget about the conclusion part of the case study, but this is a costly mistake to make. A well-written case study must end with an appropriate final section, in which you should summarize the key takeaways that you want others to remember about you and your work. Let’s see why.

Last impressions are just as important as first ones

We’ll go to some length here to convince you about the importance of last impressions, especially as we can understand the reason behind not wanting to pay very much attention to the end of your case study, after all the hard work you put into writing the process section. You are tired, and anyone who’s read your work should already have a good idea about your skills, anyway. Surely—you could be forgiven for thinking, at least—all that awesome material you put in the start and middle sections must have built up the momentum to take your work into orbit and make the recruiter’s last impression of you a lasting—and very good—one, and all you need to do now is take your leave. However, psychologist Saul McLeod (2008) explains how early work by experimental psychology pioneers Atkinson & Shriffin (1968) demonstrated that when humans are presented with information, they tend to remember the first and last elements and are more likely to forget the middle ones.

This is known as the “ serial position effect ” (more technically, the tendency to remember the first elements is known as the “ primacy effect ”, while the tendency to remember the last elements is known as the “ recency effect ”). Further work in human experiences discovered that the last few things we see or hear at the end of an experience can generate the most powerful memories that come back to us when we come across a situation or when we think about it. For example, let’s say you stayed in a hotel room that left a bit to be desired. Maybe the room was a little cramped, or the towels were not so soft. But if the receptionist, as you leave, shakes your hand warmly, smiles and thanks you sincerely for your custom, and goes out of his way to help you with your luggage, or to get you a taxi, you will remember that person’s kind demeanor more than you will remember the fact that the room facilities could be improved.

A good ending to your case study can help people forget some of the not-so-good points about your case study middle. For example, if you missed out a few crucial details but can demonstrate some truly interesting takeaways, they can always just ask you about these in an interview. Inversely, a bad ending leaves the recruiter with some doubt that will linger. Did this person learn nothing interesting from all this work? Did their work have no impact at all? Did they even write the case study themselves? A bad last impression can certainly undo much of the hard work you’ve put into writing the complicated middle part of your case study.

What to put in your case study conclusions

A case study ending is your opportunity to bring some closure to the story that you are writing. So, you can use it to mention the status of the project (e.g., is it ongoing or has it ended?) and then to demonstrate the impact that your work has had. By presenting some quantifiable results (e.g., data from end evaluations, analytics, key performance indicators ), you can demonstrate this impact. You can also discuss what you learned from this project, making you wiser than the next applicant – for example, something about a special category of users that the company might be interested in developing products for, or something that is cutting-edge and that advances the frontiers of science or practice.

As you can see, there are a few good ways in which you can end your case study. Next, we will outline four options that can be part of your ending: lessons learned, the impact of the project, reflections, and acknowledgements.

Lessons learned

A recruiter wants to see how you improve yourself by learning from the projects you work on. You can discuss interesting insights that you learned from user research or the evaluation of your designs – for example, surprising behaviors that you found out about the technology use in a group of users who are not typically considered to be big proponents of technology (e.g., older adults), or, perhaps, the reasons a particular design pattern didn’t work as well as expected under the context of your project.

Another thing you can discuss is your opinion on what the most difficult challenge of the project was, and comment on how you managed to overcome it. You can also discuss here things that you found out about yourself as a professional – for example, that you enjoyed taking on a UX role that you didn’t have previous experience with, or that you were able to overcome some personal limitations or build on your existing skills in a new way.

Impact of the project

Showing impact is always good. How did you measure the impact of your work? By using analytics, evaluation results, and even testimonials from your customers or users, or even your development or marketing team, you can demonstrate that your methodical approach to work brought about some positive change. Use before-after comparison data to demonstrate the extent of your impact. Verbatim positive quotes from your users or other project stakeholders are worth their weight (or rather, sentence length) in gold. Don’t go overboard, but mix and match the best evidence for the quality of your work to keep the end section brief and to the point.

Copyright holder: Andreas Komninos, Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-SA 3.0

User reviews from app stores are a great source of obtaining testimonials to include in your case studies. Overall app ratings and download volumes are also great bits of information to show impact.

An excerpt from a case study ending section. Here, text and accompanying charts are used to demonstrate the impact of the work done by the UX professional.

Reflections on your experiences

You can include some information that shows you have a clear understanding of how further work can build on the success of what you’ve already done. This demonstrates forward thinking and exploratory desire. Something else you can reflect on is your choices during the project. In every project, there might be things you could do differently or improve upon. But be aware that the natural question that follows such statements is this: “Well, so why haven’t you done it?”

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by listing all the things you wish you could have done, but focus on what you’ve actually done and lay out future directions. For example, if you’ve done the user research in an ongoing project, don’t say, “ After all this user research, it would have been great to progress to a prototype, but it’s not yet done ”; instead, say, “ This user research is now enabling developers to quickly progress to the prototyping stage. ”

Acknowledgments

The end of the case study section is where you should put in your acknowledgments to any other members of your team, if this wasn’t a personal project. Your goal by doing so is to highlight your team spirit and humility in recognizing that great projects are most typically the result of collaboration . Be careful here, because it’s easy to make the waters muddy by not being explicit about what YOU did. So, for example, don’t write something like “ I couldn’t have done it without John X. and Jane Y. ”, but instead say this: “ My user research and prototype design fed into the development work carried out by John X. User testing was carried out by Jane Y., whose findings informed further re-design that I did on the prototypes. ”

What is a good length for a UX case study ending?

UX case studies must be kept short, and, when considering the length of your beginning, process and conclusion sections, it’s the beginning and the conclusion sections that should be the shortest of all. In some case studies, you can keep the ending to two or three short phrases. Other, longer case studies about more complex projects may require a slightly longer section.

Remember, though, that the end section is your chance for a last, short but impactful impression. If the hotel receptionist from our early example started to say goodbye and then went on and on to ask you about your experience, sharing with you the comments of other clients, or started talking to you about where you are going next, and why, and maybe if he had been there himself, started to tell you all about where to go and what to see, well… you get the point. Keep it short, sincere and focused. And certainly, don’t try to make the project sound more important than it was. Recruiters are not stupid – they’ve been there and done that, so they know.

Putting it all together

In the example below, we will show how you can address the points above using text. We are going to focus on the three main questions here, so you can see an example of this in action, for a longer case study.

An example ending section for a longer case study, addressing all aspects: Lessons, impact, reflection and acknowledgments.

Here is how we might structure the text for a shorter version of the same case study, focusing on the bare essentials:

An example ending section for a shorter case study, addressing the most critical aspects: Lessons, impact and reflection. Acknowledgments are being sacrificed for the sake of brevity here, but perhaps that’s OK – you might mention it in the middle part of the case study.

The Take Away

The end part of your case study needs as much care and attention as the rest of it does. You shouldn’t neglect it just because it’s the last thing in the case study. It’s not hard work if you know the basics, and here, we’ve given you the pointers you need to ensure that you don’t miss out anything important. The end part of the case study should leave your recruiters with a good (hopefully, very good) last impression of you and your work, so give it the thorough consideration it needs, to ensure it doesn’t undo all the hard work you’ve put into the case study.

References & Where to Learn More

Copyright holder: Andrew Hurley, Flickr. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-SA 2.0

Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Chapter: Human memory : A proposed system and its control processes. In Spence, K. W., & Spence, J. T. The psychology of learning and motivation (Volume 2). New York: Academic Press. pp. 89–195.

McLeod, S. (2008). Serial Position Effect

How to Create a UX Portfolio

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How to Write a Good Conclusion (With Examples) 

• Smodin Editorial Team
• Published: May 31, 2024

Students often spend a great deal of time crafting essay introductions while leaving the conclusion as an afterthought. While the introduction is one of the most vital aspects of an essay, a good conclusion can have just as much of an impact on its effectiveness. Knowing how to write a good conclusion is crucial, as it encapsulates your main points and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

A well-crafted conclusion should serve as the final pitch for your arguments. Your reader should walk away with a clear understanding of what they just read and how it applies to the core of your thesis. With the right approach, your conclusion can transform a good essay into a great one, making it both memorable and impactful.

This article will guide you through four simple steps of writing compelling conclusions. Each step is designed to help you reinforce your thesis and articulate your final thoughts in a way that will resonate with your teacher or professor. With a bit of practice, you can learn how to stick the landing and give every essay the finale it deserves.

What Is the Purpose of the Conclusion Paragraph?

Understanding the purpose of the conclusion paragraph is essential for effective essay writing. The conclusion paragraph should be more than just a summary of your essay. It should consolidate all your arguments and tie them back to your thesis.

Remember, all good writing inspires emotion. Whether to inspire, provoke, or engage is up to you, but the conclusion should always leave a lasting impression.

If in doubt, Smodin’s AI Chat tool can be handy for gauging the emotional impact of your conclusion.

By mastering the art of writing a powerful conclusion, you equip yourself with the tools to ensure your essays stand out. Whether it’s the first or last essay you’re writing for the class, it’s your chance to leave a definitive mark on your reader.

How to Write a Good Conclusion

This approach ensures your conclusion adds value and reinforces your arguments’ coherence. Here are three simple and effective practices to help you craft a solid conclusion.

Restating Your Thesis

Restating your thesis in the conclusion is a common practice in essay writing, and for good reason. It helps underscore how your understanding has deepened or shifted based on the evidence you provided.

Just understand that a restatement of your original thesis doesn’t mean a complete word-for-word repeat. You should rephrase your original thesis so that it elucidates the insights you touched on throughout the essay. Smodin’s AI Rewriter can help refine your restatement to ensure it is fresh and impactful.

Here are a few tips to effectively restate your thesis

• Show Complexity : If your essay added layers or nuances to the original statement, be sure to articulate that clearly.
• Integrate Key Findings : Incorporate the main findings of your essay to reinforce how they supported or refined your thesis.
• Keep It Fresh : Again, you want to avoid repeating the same things twice. Use different wording that reflects a nuanced perspective.

Finally, always ensure that the restated thesis connects seamlessly with the rest of your essay. Always try to showcase the coherence of your writing to provide the reader with a strong sense of closure.

Using AI tools like Smodin’s Outliner and Essay Writer can ensure your writing flows smoothly and is easy to follow.

Providing an Effective Synthesis

Providing an effective synthesis should enhance your original thesis. All good arguments should evolve and shift throughout the essay. Rather than simply summarizing these findings, you should integrate critical insights and evidence to demonstrate a deeper or more nuanced understanding.

Draw connections between the main points discussed and show how they collectively support your thesis. Also, reflect on the implications of these insights for the broader context of your subject. And once again, always use fresh and engaging language to maintain the reader’s interest.

The last thing you want is for your reader to view your essay as a collection of individual points. A good essay should read as a unified whole, with all the pieces tying together naturally. You affirm your argument’s significance when you tie all the pieces together in your conclusion.

Providing New Insights

Also, think of this step as your opportunity to propose future research directions based on your findings. What could a student or researcher study next? What unanswered questions remain? If you’re having trouble answering these questions, consider using Smodin’s research tools to expand your knowledge of the topic.

That isn’t to say you can leave open-ended or unanswered questions about your own thesis. On the contrary, your conclusion should firmly establish the validity of your argument. That said, any deep and insightful analysis naturally leads to further exploration. Draw attention to these potential areas of inquiry.

(Optional) Form a Personal Connection With the Reader

Forming a connection with the reader in the conclusion can personalize and strengthen the impact of your essay. This technique can be powerful if implemented correctly, making your writing more relatable, human, and memorable.

That said, slime academics discourage using “I” in formal essays. It’s always best to clarify your teacher’s or professor’s stance before submitting your final draft.

If it is allowed, consider sharing a brief personal reflection or anecdote that ties back to the main themes of your essay. A personal touch can go a long way toward humanizing your arguments and creating a connection with the reader.

Whatever you choose, remember that your conclusion should always complement the analytical findings of your essay. Never say anything that detracts from your thesis or the findings you presented.

Examples of Good Conclusions

Let’s explore some examples to illustrate what a well-crafted conclusion looks and sounds like. The following are two hypothetical thesis essays from the fields of science and literature.

• Thesis Topic: The Impact of Climate Change on Coral Reefs
• Introduction: “Coral reefs act as the guardians of the ocean’s biodiversity. These underwater ecosystems are among the most vibrant and essential on the entire planet. However, the escalating impact of climate change poses a severe threat to their health and survival. This essay aims to dissect specific environmental changes contributing to coral degradation while proposing measures for mitigation.”
• Conclusion: “This investigation into the impact of climate change on coral reefs has revealed a disturbing acceleration of coral bleaching events and a significant decline of reef biodiversity. The findings presented in this study establish a clear link between increased sea temperatures and coral reef mortality. Future research should focus on the resilience mechanisms of coral species that could influence conservation strategies. The fate of the coral reefs depends on humanity’s immediate and concentrated action to curb global emissions and preserve these vital ecosystems for future generations.”

Notice how the conclusion doesn’t simply restate the thesis. Instead, it highlights the definitive connection between climate change and coral health. It also reiterates the issue’s urgency and extends a call of action for ongoing intervention. The last sentence is direct, to the point, and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

If you’re struggling with your closing sentence (or any sentence, for that matter), Smodin’s Rewriter can create hundreds of different sentences in seconds. Then, choose the sentences and phrases that resonate the most and use them to craft a compelling conclusion.

• Thesis Topic: The Evolution of the American Dream in 20th-Century American Literature
• Introduction: “The American Dream was once defined by prosperity and success. However, throughout the 20th century, the representation of the American Dream in popular literature has undergone significant changes. Are these representations indicative of a far-reaching sentiment that lay dormant among the American public? Or were these works simply the result of disillusioned writers responding to the evolving challenges of the times?”
• Conclusion: “Works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and Toni Morrison illustrate the American Dream’s evolution from unbridled optimism to a more critical examination of the American ethos. Throughout modernist and post-modernist literature, the American Dream is often at odds with core American values. These novels reflect broader societal shifts that continue to shape the national consciousness. Further research into contemporary literature could provide greater insight into the complexities of this concept.”

You will know exactly what this essay covers by reading the introduction and conclusion alone. It summarizes the evolution of the American Dream by examining the works of three unique authors. It then analyzes these works to demonstrate how they reflect broader societal shifts. The conclusion works as both a capstone and a bridge to set the stage for future inquiries.

Write Better Conclusions With Smodin

Always remember the human element behind the grading process when crafting your essay. Your teachers or professors are human and have likely spent countless hours reviewing essays on similar topics. The grading process can be long and exhaustive. Your conclusion should aim to make their task easier, not harder.

A well-crafted conclusion serves as the final piece to your argument. It should recap the critical insights discussed above while shedding new light on the topic. By including innovative elements and insightful observations, your conclusion will help your essay stand out from the crowd.

Make sure your essay ends on a high note to maximize your chances of getting a better grade now and in the future. Smodin’s comprehensive suite of AI tools can help you enhance every aspect of your essay writing. From initial research to structuring, these tools can streamline the process and improve the quality of your essays.

• Open access
• Published: 27 May 2024

Patients’ satisfaction with cancer pain treatment at adult oncologic centers in Northern Ethiopia; a multi-center cross-sectional study

• Molla Amsalu 1 ,
• Henos Enyew Ashagrie 2 ,
• Amare Belete Getahun 2 &
• Yophtahe Woldegerima Berhe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0988-7723 2  

BMC Cancer volume  24 , Article number:  647 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

142 Accesses

Metrics details

Patient satisfaction is an important indicator of the quality of healthcare. Pain is one of the most common symptoms among cancer patients that needs optimal treatment; rather, it compromises the quality of life of patients.

To assess the levels and associated factors of satisfaction with cancer pain treatment among adult patients at cancer centers found in Northern Ethiopia in 2023.

After obtaining ethical approval, a multi-center cross-sectional study was conducted at four cancer care centers in northern Ethiopia. The data were collected using an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire that included the Lubeck Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire (LMSQ). The severity of pain was assessed by a numerical rating scale from 0 to 10 with a pain score of 0 = no pain, 1–3 = mild pain, 4–6 = moderate pain, and 7–10 = severe pain Binary logistic regression analysis was employed, and the strength of association was described in an adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval.

A total of 397 cancer patients participated in this study, with a response rate of 98.3%. We found that 70.3% of patients were satisfied with their cancer pain treatment. Being married (AOR = 5.6, CI = 2.6–12, P  < 0.001) and being single (never married) (AOR = 3.5, CI = 1.3–9.7, P  = 0.017) as compared to divorced, receiving adequate pain management (AOR = 2.4, CI = 1.1–5.3, P  = 0.03) as compared to those who didn’t receive it, and having lower pain severity (AOR = 2.6, CI = 1.5–4.8, P  < 0.001) as compared to those who had higher level of pain severity were found to be associated with satisfaction with cancer pain treatment.

The majority of cancer patients were satisfied with cancer pain treatment. Being married, being single (never married), lower pain severity, and receiving adequate pain management were found to be associated with satisfaction with cancer pain treatment. It would be better to enhance the use of multimodal analgesia in combination with strong opioids to ensure adequate pain management and lower pain severity scores.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage [ 1 ]. The prevalence of pain in cancer patients is 44.5-66%. with the prevalence of moderate to severe pain ranging from 30 to 38%, and it can persist in 5-10% of cancer survivors [ 2 ]. Using the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer pain management guidelines can effectively reduce cancer-related pain in 70-90% of patients [ 3 , 4 ]. Compared to traditional pain states, the mechanism of cancer-related pain is less understood; however, cancer-specific mechanisms, inflammatory, and neuropathic processes have been identified [ 5 ]. Uncontrolled pain can negatively affect patients’ daily lives, emotional health, social relationships, and adherence to cancer treatment [ 6 ]. Patients with moderate to severe pain have a higher fatigue score, a loss of appetite, and financial difficulties [ 7 ]. Patients fear the pain caused by cancer more than dying from the disease since pain affects their physical and mental aspects of life [ 8 ]. A meta-analysis of 30 studies stated that pain was found to be a significant prognostic factor for short-term survival in cancer patients [ 9 ]. Many cancer patients have a very poor prognosis. However, adequate pain treatment prevents suffering and improves their quality of life. Although the WHO suggested non-opioids for mild pain, weak opioids for moderate pain, and strong opioids for severe pain, pain treatment is not yet adequate in one-third of cancer patients [ 10 ].

Patient satisfaction with pain management is a valuable measure of treatment effectiveness and outcome. It could be used to evaluate the quality of care [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Patient satisfaction affects treatment compliance and adherence [ 12 ]. Studies have reported that 60-76% of patients were satisfied with pain treatment, and a variety of factors were found associated with levels of satisfaction [ 3 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Studies conducted in Ethiopia reported the prevalence of pain ranging from 59.9 to 93.4% [ 17 , 18 ]. These studies indicate that cancer pain is inadequately treated. Assessment of pain treatment satisfaction can help identify appropriate treatment modalities and further its effectiveness. We conducted this study since there was limited research-based evidence on cancer pain management in low-income countries like Ethiopia. Our research questions were: how satisfied are adult cancer patients with pain treatment, and what are the factors associated with the satisfaction of adult cancer patients with pain treatment?

Methodology

Study design, area, period, and population.

A multi-center cross-sectional study was conducted at four cancer care centers in Amhara National Regional State, Northern Ethiopia from March to May 2023. Those cancer care centers were found in the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (UoGCSH), Felege-Hiwot Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (FHCSH), Tibebe-Ghion Comprehensive Specialised Hospital (TGCSH) and Dessie Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (DCSH). We selected these centers as they were the only institutions providing oncologic care in the region during the study period.

The UoGCSH had 28 beds in its adult oncology ward and serves 450 cancer patients every month. Three specialist oncologists and 12 nurses provide services in the ward. The FHCSH had 22 beds and provides services for 325 cancer patients every month. Two specialist oncologists, two oncologic nurses, and 7 comprehensive nurses provide services. The TGCSH had eight beds and serves 300 cancer patients every month. There were three specialist oncologists and four oncologic nurses at the care center. The cancer care center at DCSH had 10 beds. It serves 350 cancer patients every month. There was one specialist oncologist, three oncologic nurses, and three comprehensive nurses.

All cancer patients who attended those cancer care centers were the source population, and adult (18+) cancer patients who were prescribed pain treatment for a minimum of one month were the study population. Unconscious patients, patients with psychiatric problems, patients with advanced cancer who were unable to cooperate, and patients with oncologic emergencies were excluded from this study.

Variables and operational definitions

The outcome variable was patient satisfaction with cancer pain treatment, which was measured by the Lubeck Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire. The independent variables were sociodemographic (age, sex, marital status, monthly income, and level of education), clinical (site of tumor, stage of cancer, metastasis), cancer treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy), level of pain, and analgesia (type of analgesia, severity of pain, adequacy of pain treatment, adjuvant analgesic).

• Patient satisfaction

perceptions of the patients regarding the outcome of pain management and the extent to which it meets their needs and expectations. It was measured by a 4-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree) using the LMSQ which has 18 items within 6 subscales that have 3 items in each (effectivity, practicality, side-effects, daily life, healthcare providers, and overall satisfaction) [ 19 ]. Final categorization was done by dichotomizing into satisfied and dissatisfied by using the demarcation threshold formula.

\((\frac{\text{T}\text{o}\text{t}\text{a}\text{l}\,\,\text{h}\text{i}\text{g}\text{h}\text{e}\text{s}\text{t}\,\,\text{s}\text{c}\text{o}\text{r}\text{e} - \text{T}\text{o}\text{t}\text{a}\text{l}\,\, \text{l}\text{o}\text{w}\text{e}\text{s}\text{t}\,\, \text{s}\text{c}\text{o}\text{r}\text{e} }{2}\) ) + Total lowest score [ 20 ]. The highest patient satisfaction score was 70 and the lowest satisfaction score was 26. A score < 48 was classified as dissatisfied, and a score ≥ 48 was classified as satisfied.

The Numeric rating scale (NRS) is a validated pain intensity assessment tool that helps to give patients a subjective feeling of pain with a numerical value between 0 and 10, in which 0 = no pain, 1–3 = mild pain, 4–6 = moderate pain, 7–10 = severe pain [ 21 ].

The Adequacy of cancer pain treatment was measured by calculating the Pain Management Index (PMI) according to the recommendations of the WHO pain management guideline [ 22 ]. The PMI was calculated by considering the prescribed most potent analgesic agent and the worst pain reported in the last 24 h [ 23 ]. The prescribed analgesics were scored as follows: 0 = no analgesia, 1 = non-opioid analgesia, 2 = weak opioids, and 3 = strong opioids. The PMI was calculated by subtracting the reported NRS value from the type of most potent analgesics administered. The calculated values of PMI ranged from − 3 (no analgesia therapy for a patient with severe pain) to + 3 (strong opioid for a patient with no pain). Patients with a positive PMI value were considered to be receiving adequate analgesia, whereas those with a negative PMI value were considered to be receiving inadequate analgesia.

Sample size determination and sampling technique

A single population proportion formula was used to determine the sample size by considering 50% satisfaction with cancer pain treatment and a 5% margin of error at a 95% confidence interval (CI). A non-probability (consecutive) sampling technique was employed to attain a sample size within two months of data collection period. After adjusting the proportional allocation for each center and adding 5% none response, a total of 404 study participants were included in the study: 128 from the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, 99 from Dessie Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, 92 from Felege Hiwot Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, and 85 from Tibebe Ghion Comprehensive Specialized Hospital.

Data collection, processing, and analysis

Ethical approval.

was obtained from the Ethical Review Committee of the School of Medicine at the University of Gondar ( Reference number: CMHS/SM/06/01/4097/2015) . Data were collected using an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire and chart review during outpatient and inpatient hospital visits by four trained data collectors (one for every center). Written informed consent was obtained from each participant after detailed explanations about the study. Informed consent with a fingerprint signature was obtained from patients who could not read or write after detailed explanations by the data collectors as approved by the Ethical Review Committee of the School of Medicine, at the University of Gondar.

Questions to assess the severity of pain and pain relief were taken from the American Pain Society patient outcome questionnaire [ 24 ]. Patients were asked to report the worst and least pain in the past 24 h and the current pain by using a numeric rating scale from 0 to 10, with a pain score of 0 = no pain, 1–3 = mild pain, 4–6 = moderate pain, 7–10 = severe pain.

The Pain Management Index (PMI) based on WHO guidelines, was used to quantify pain management by measuring the adequacy of cancer pain treatment [ 25 ]. The following scores were given (0 = no analgesia, 1 = non-opioid analgesia, 2 = weak opioid 3 = strong opioid). Pain Management Index was calculated by subtracting self-reported pain level from the type of analgesia administered and ranges from − 3 (no analgesic therapy for a patient with severe pain) to + 3 (strong opioid for a patient with no pain). The level of pain was defined as 0 with no pain, 1 for mild pain, 2 for moderate pain, and 3 for severe pain. Patients with negative PMI scores received inadequate analgesia.

The pain treatment satisfaction was measured by the Lübeck Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire (LMSQ) consisting of 18 items [ 19 ]. Lübeck Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire (LMSQ) has six subclasses each consisting of equally waited and similar context of three items. The subclass includes satisfaction with the effectiveness of pain medication, satisfaction with the practicality or form of pain medication, satisfaction with the side effect profile of pain medication, satisfaction with daily life after receiving pain treatment, satisfaction with healthcare providers, and overall satisfaction. Satisfaction was expressed by a four-point Likert scale (4 = Strongly Agree, 3 = Agree, 2 = Disagree, 1 = Strongly Disagree). The side effect subclass was phrased negatively, marked with Asterix, and reverse-scored in STATA before data analysis.

Data were collected with an interviewer-administered questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by using 40 pretested participants and the reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha value) of the questionnaire was 91.2%. The collected data was checked for completeness, accuracy, and clarity by the investigators. The cleaned and coded data were entered in Epi-data software version 4.6 and exported to STATA version 17. The Shapiro-Wilk test, variance inflation factor, and Hosmer-Lemeshow test were used to assess distribution, multicollinearity, and model fitness, respectively. Descriptive, Chi-square and binary logistic regression analyses were performed to investigate the associations between the independent and dependent variables. The independent variables with a p-value < 0.2 in the bivariable binary logistic regression were fitted to the final multivariable binary logistic regression analysis. Variables with p-value < 0.05 in the final analysis were considered to have a statistically significant association. The strength of associations was described in adjusted odds ratio (AOR) at a 95% confidence interval.

Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics

A total of 397 patients were involved in this study (response rate of 98.3%). Of the participants, 224 (56.4%) were female, and over half were from rural areas ( n  = 210, 52.9%). The median (IQR) age was 48 (38–59) years [Table  1 ]. The most common type of cancer was gastrointestinal cancer 114 (28.7%). Most of the study participants, 213 (63.7%), were diagnosed with stage II to III cancer. The majority of the participants were taking chemotherapy alone (292 (73.6%)) [Table  2 ]. Over 90% of patients reported pain; 42.3% reported mild pain, 39.8% reported moderate pain, and 10.1% reported severe pain. Pain treatment adequacy was assessed by self-reports from study participants following pain management guidelines, and 17.1% of patients responded to having inadequate pain treatment. The majority of patients, 132 (33.3%), were prescribed combinations of non-opioid and weak opioid analgesics for cancer pain treatment. Only 34 (8.6%) cancer patients used either strong opioids alone or in combination with non-opioid analgesics.

Patients’ satisfaction with cancer pain treatment and correlation among the subscales

Most participants strongly agree (243, (61.2%)) with item LMSQ18 in the “overall satisfaction” subscale and strongly disagree (206, (51.9%)) for item LMSQ2 in the “side-effect” subscale respectively [Table  3 ]. The highest satisfaction score was observed in the side-effect subscale, with a median (IQR) of 10 (9–11) [Table  4 ].

Two hundred and seventy-nine (70.3%) cancer patients were found to be satisfied with cancer pain treatment (CI = 65.6−74.6%). The highest satisfaction rate was observed in the “side-effects” subscale, to which 343 (86.4%) responded satisfied [Fig.  1 ]. A Spearman’s correlation test revealed that there were correlations among the subscales of LMSQ; and the strongest positive correlation was observed between effectivity and healthcare workers subscale (r s = 0.7, p  < 0.0001). The correlation among the subscales is illustrated in a heatmap [Fig.  2 ].

Patient satisfaction with cancer pain treatment with each LMSQ subclass, n  = 397

A heatmap showing the Spearman correlation of each subclass of pain treatment satisfaction, n  = 397

Factors associated with patient satisfaction with cancer pain treatment

In the bivariable binary logistic regression analysis, marital status, stage of cancer, types of cancer treatment, severity of pain in the last 24 h, current pain severity, types of analgesics, and pain management index met the threshold of P-value < 0.2 to be included into the final multivariable binary logistic regression analysis. In the final analysis, marital status, current pain severity, and pain management index were significantly associated with patient satisfaction (P-value < 0.05). Married and single cancer patients had higher odds of being satisfied with cancer pain treatment compared to divorced patients (AOR = 5.6, CI, 2.6–12.0, P  < 0.001), (AOR = 3.5, CI = 1.3–9.7, P  = 0.017), respectively. The odds of being satisfied with cancer pain treatment among patients who received adequate pain management were more than two times greater than those who received inadequate pain management (AOR = 2.4, CI = 1.1–5.3, P  = 0.03). Patients who reported a lesser severity of current pain were nearly three times more likely to be satisfied with cancer pain treatment (AOR = 2.6, CI = 1.5–4.8, P  < 0.001) [Table  5 ].

The objective of the present study was to assess patients’ satisfaction with cancer pain treatment at adult oncologic centers. Our study revealed that most cancer patients (70.3%) have been satisfied with cancer pain treatment. This is consistent with studies done by Kaggwa et al. and Mazzotta et al. [ 16 , 26 ]. Whereas, it is a higher rate of satisfaction compared to other studies that reported 33.0% [ 27 ] and 47.7% [ 28 ] of satisfaction. The differences might be possibly explained by the use of different pain and satisfaction assessment tools, the greater inclusion (about 70%) of patients with advanced stages of cancer, the duration of cancer pain treatment, and the adequacy of pain management. In the current study, only 19.6% of patients have been diagnosed with stage IV cancer: patients should take treatment at least for a month, and over 80% of patients have received adequate pain management according to PMI. However, some studies have reported higher rates of satisfaction with cancer pain treatment [ 15 , 29 ]. The possible reason for the discrepancy might be the greater (over 40%) use of strong opioid analgesics in the previous studies. Strong opioids were prescribed only for 8.6% of patients in our study. Due to the complex pathophysiology, cancer pain involves multiple pain pathways. Hence, multimodal analgesia in combination with strong opioids is vital in cancer pain management [ 30 ]. Furthermore, the use of epidural analgesia could be another reason for higher rates of satisfaction [ 29 ].

Regarding satisfaction with subscales of LMSQ, about 80% of patients were satisfied with the information provided by the healthcare providers [ 27 ]. In our study; 67.8% of patients were satisfied with the education provided by healthcare providers about their disease and treatment. In contrast, a higher proportion of participants were satisfied with information provision in a study conducted by Kharel et al. [ 29 ]. Furthermore, we observed the lowest satisfaction rate in the daily life subscale. About 48% of cancer patients were not satisfied with their daily lives after receiving analgesic treatment for cancer pain.

Married and single (never married) cancer patients were found to have higher odds of being satisfied with cancer pain treatment as compared to divorced cancer patients. These findings could be explained by the presence of better social support from family or loved ones. Better social support can enhance positive coping mechanisms, increase a sense of well-being, and decrease anxiety and depression. It also improves a sense of societal vitality and results in higher patient’ satisfaction [ 31 , 32 ].

Patients who had a lower pain score were satisfied compared to those who reported a higher pain score, and this is supported by multiple previous studies [ 16 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 33 , 34 ]. This could be explained by the negative impacts of pain on physical function, sleep, mood, and wellbeing [ 35 ]. Moreover, higher pain severity scores could increase financial expenses because of unnecessary or avoidable emergency department visits; and has a consequence of dissatisfaction [ 23 ]. On the contrary, there are studies that state pain severity does not affect patients’ satisfaction [ 36 , 37 ].

Positive PMI scores were significantly associated with cancer pain treatment satisfaction. Patients who received adequate pain management were highly likely to be satisfied with cancer pain treatment. This finding is similar to that of a study done in Taiwan [ 38 ]. However, a study conducted by Kaggwa et al. has denied any association between PMI scores and cancer pain satisfaction [ 16 ].

Satisfaction with healthcare workers and effectivity of analgesics

This study showed that there was a moderately positive correlation between satisfaction with healthcare workers and satisfaction with patients’ perceived effectiveness of analgesics. This might be explained by a positive relationship between healthcare professionals and patients receiving cancer pain treatment. Healthcare providers who provide health education regarding the effectiveness of analgesics may improve patients’ adherence to the prescribed analgesic agent and improve patients’ perceived satisfaction with the effectiveness of analgesics. A systematic review showed that the hope and positivity of healthcare professionals were important for patients to cope with cancer and increase satisfaction with care [ 39 ]. Increased patient satisfaction with care provided by healthcare workers may change attitude of patients who accepted cancer pain as God’s wisdom or punishment and create a positive attitude toward the effectiveness of analgesics [ 40 ]. Another study supported this finding and stated that healthcare providers who deliver health education regarding the prevention of drug addiction, side effects of analgesics, timing, and dosage of analgesics improve patient attitude and cancer pain treatment [ 41 ].

Correlation of each subclass of cancer pain treatment satisfaction

A Spearman correlation was run to assess the correlation of each subclass of LMSQ using the total sample. There was strong positive correlation (r s = 0.5–0.64) between most of LMSQ subclass at p  < 0.01.

A cross-sectional study stated that the effectiveness of analgesic, efficacy of medication and patient healthcare provider communication were associated with patient satisfaction [ 42 ]. In this study, 58.2% of patients were satisfied with the practicability of analgesic medications. Comparable to this study, a cross-sectional study stated that patients who were prescribed convenient, fast-acting medications were more satisfied [ 43 ]. Another study stated that 100% of patients who received sufficient information on analgesic treatment and 97.9% of patients who received sufficient information about the side effects of analgesic treatment were satisfied with cancer pain management [ 44 ]. Patients who were satisfied with their pain levels reported statistically lower mean pain scores (2.26 ± 1.70) compared to those not satisfied (4.68 ± 2.07) or not sure (4.21 ± 2.21) [ 27 ]. This may be explained by the impact of pain on daily activity. Patients who report a lower average pain score may have a lower impact of pain on physical activity compared to those who report a higher mean pain score. Another study also supports this evidence and states that patients who reported a severe pain score and lower quality of life had lower satisfaction with the treatment received [ 45 ].

As a secondary outcome, only 16% of patients were diagnosed to have stage I cancer. This finding could indirectly indicate that there were delays in cancer diagnosis at earlier stage. Further studies may be required to underpin this finding.

In this study, baseline pain before analgesic treatment was not assessed and documented. As a cross-sectional study, we could not draw a cause-and-effect conclusion. Since questions that were used to measure oncologic pain treatment satisfaction were self-reported, answers to each question might not be trustful. The expectation and opinion of the interviewer also might affect the result of the study. These could be potential limitations of the study.

Conclusions

Despite the fact that most cancer patients reported moderate to severe pain, there was a high rate of satisfaction with cancer pain treatment. It would be better if hospitals, healthcare professionals, and administrators took measures to enhance the use of multimodal analgesia in combination with strong opioids to ensure adequate pain management, lower pain severity scores, and better daily life. We also urge the arrangement of better social support mechanisms for cancer patients, the improvement of information provision, and the deployment of professionals who have trained in pain management discipline at cancer care centres.

Data availability

Data and materials used in this study are available and can be presented by the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Adjusted Odds Ratio

Crude Odds Ratio

Confidence Interval

Dessie Compressive and Specialized Hospital

Felege-Hiwot Compressive and Specialized Hospital

Inter-quartile Range

Lubeck Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire

Numerical Rating Scale

Pain Management Index

Standard Deviation

Tibebe-Ghion Compressive and Specialized Hospital

University of Gondar Compressive and Specialized Hospital

World health organization

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Tibebe-Ghion Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Felege-Hiwot Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Dessie Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. We would also want to acknowledge Ludwig Matrisch from the Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Universität zu Lübeck, 23562 Lübeck, Germany for supporting us on the utilization of the Lübeck Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire (LMSQ) [email protected],

This study was supported by University of Gondar and Debre Birhan University with no conflict of interest. The support did not include publication charges.

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‘’M.A. has conceptualized the study and objectives; and developed the proposal. Y.W.B., H.E.A., and A.B.G. criticized the proposal. All authors had participated in the data management and statistical analyses. Y.W.B, M.A., and H.E.A. have prepared the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.‘’.

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Amsalu, M., Ashagrie, H.E., Getahun, A.B. et al. Patients’ satisfaction with cancer pain treatment at adult oncologic centers in Northern Ethiopia; a multi-center cross-sectional study. BMC Cancer 24 , 647 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-024-12359-7

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INNOVATIONS in pharmacy

Vol. 15 No. 2 (2024)

Copyright (c) 2024 Patrick Gallegos, Salaar, Michael

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Leadership and Followership in Health Professions: A Systematic Review

Patrick Gallegos

Cleveland Clinic Akron General

Muhammad Salaar Riaz

Nassau University Medical Center

Michael Peeters

University of Toledo

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/iip.v15i2.5987

Keywords: Leadership, Followership, Health Professions

Objective: Leadership discussion, including leadership development programs, is common. However, discussion of followership as a component of leadership seems less frequently discussed. With a focus on leadership and followership, this investigation reviewed the health-professions education literature and characterized leadership-followership within health-professions education.

Methods : Using PubMed, ERIC, and Google Scholar, two investigators independently and systematically searched health-professions education literature for articles related to leadership and followership. Reports were categorized based on the articles by type, application, profession, leadership, and followership qualities.

Results: Eighty-one articles were included. More than half (48/81, 59%) were theoretical, 27% (22/81) empirical, 7% (6/81) commentaries, and 6% (5/81) letters-to-the-editor). Empirical studies did not share outcomes that could be meaningfully combined quantitatively by meta-analysis; however, the vast majority (96%) of theoretical articles discussed a healthcare-related application of leadership and followership (e.g., improving patient care, improving communication, improving organizational efficiency). Thus, a qualitative review was completed. Of the 81 articles, 57% (n=46) involved multiple professions, while 43% (n=35) focused on a specific profession [Nursing (n=16), Medicine (n=7), Others (n=5) Surgery (n=3), Pharmacy (n=2), Veterinary Medicine (n=2)]. While most articles (75%) discussed leadership qualities (with top qualities of effective communication, visionary, and delegating tasks), fewer (57%) discussed followership qualities (with top qualities of being responsible, committed, and supportive). Of note, some qualities overlapped in both leadership and followership (with top qualities of effective communication, being supportive, and providing/receiving feedback).

Conclusions: Leadership-Followership was described in many health-professions’ education literature. However, Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine had substantially fewer articles published on this topic. Notably, followership did not receive nearly as much attention as leadership. Leadership has a dynamic and complex interaction with followership highlighting that an effective leader must know how to be an effective follower and vice versa. To improve leadership within healthcare teamwork, education should focus on both leadership-followership.  

Author Biographies

Muhammad salaar riaz, nassau university medical center.

Internal Medicine Resident

Michael Peeters, University of Toledo

Director of Interprofessional Education

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