Fundamentals of Nursing and Basic Nursing Care
Core concepts
Fundamentals questions test whether you can organize care around a small set of frameworks. Master the nursing process (assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, evaluation), Maslow's hierarchy for prioritization, and the ABCs (airway, breathing, circulation) as the first filter for any "who do you see first" item. Infection control is heavily tested: know the chain of infection, standard precautions for all body fluids, and transmission-based precautions (contact, droplet, airborne) with the correct personal protective equipment and room type. Understand safe patient handling, positioning, pressure-injury prevention and staging, and skin assessment. Wound care, asepsis (medical versus surgical), and sterile technique are recurring. Fluid and electrolyte basics, intake and output, and normal vital sign ranges by age belong here too, along with mobility, falls prevention, and documentation standards.
Traps to watch
Questions love to blur the difference between medical and surgical asepsis, or between standard and transmission-based precautions. Another classic trap: an answer that is a correct action but not the priority action. Vital sign items often hinge on a single abnormal value hidden among normal ones. Delegation items test whether a task is within unlicensed assistive personnel scope; assessment, teaching, and evaluation are never delegated. Remember that sterile fields are contaminated by moisture, reaching over, and turning away.
Worked rule of thumb
When prioritizing, run a fixed sequence: safety first (ABCs, then fall/aspiration risk), then unstable-before-stable, then acute-before-chronic, then actual-before-potential problems. For example, a client with new stridor outranks a client requesting pain medication, because airway always precedes comfort.