Assessment skills play a decisive role in setting priorities for nursing care.

The ABCDE approach is a systematic approach to primary assessment and endorsed by the Australian Resuscitation Council, as the gold standard for assessing and treating the deteriorating patient. It can assist nurses in identifying and responding to patients presenting with life threatening conditions.

Within this module you will find resources to guide the ABCDE assessment of a critically ill patient and subsequent nursing interventions.

ABCDE assessment
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How To Assess a Deteriorating / Critically Ill Patient (ABCDE Assessment)
Patients admitted to hospital feel confident that should their health deteriorate, they are in the best, safest place for prompt and efficient treatment.
https://www.ausmed.com/articles/abcde-assessment/


Primary and secondary assessments
Emergency department nurses will be responsible for the acute assessments of patients presenting with trauma.
https://fundamentalsofnursingblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/28/primary-and-secondary-assessments/


Geeky Medics
A collection of articles related to patient assessment
https://geekymedics.com/category/communication-skills/history-taking/


History Taking – Revisited
From the moment we start interacting with patients as medical students, we are always taught that a good history and physical is of paramount importance to clinch a diagnosis.
http://emdidactic.blogspot.com/2016/06/history-taking-revisited.html


History Taking
Taking a history from a patient is a skill necessary for examinations and afterwards as a practicing doctor, no matter which area you specialise in.
https://www.medistudents.com/en/learning/osce-skills/other-skills/patient-history-taking/


History Taking & Examination
The content of the history required in primary care consultations is very variable and will depend on the presenting symptoms, patient concerns and the past medical, psychological and social history.
https://patient.info/doctor/history-taking

Jevon, P. (2010). ABCDE: The assessment of the critically ill patient. British Journal of Cardiac Nursing, 5(6), 268-272. doi:10.12968/bjca.2010.5.6.48337

Jevon, P. (2010). Assessment of critically ill patients: the ABCDE approach. British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, 4(8), 404-407. doi:10.12968/bjha.2010.4.8.77721

Smith, D., & Bowden, T. (2017). Using the ABCDE approach to assess the deteriorating patient. Nursing Standard, 32(14), 51-63. doi:10.7748/ns.2017.e11030