Basic Care and Comfort
Comfort, hygiene, mobility, and rest
Basic care questions test whether you can keep a client clean, safe, mobile, nourished, and comfortable while preserving dignity. Know positioning and pressure injury prevention: reposition at least every two hours for at-risk clients, keep skin clean and dry, use pressure-redistribution surfaces, and avoid massage over bony prominences or reddened areas. Encourage early mobility, coughing, deep breathing, and adequate hydration unless restricted. For elimination, monitor patterns, privacy, fluid intake, and signs of constipation or urinary retention. For sleep, reduce noise and light, cluster care, and promote familiar routines.
Pain is subjective: accept the client's report, use a consistent scale, assess location, quality, timing, and aggravating factors, and reassess after intervention. Comfort measures such as repositioning, warmth, quiet, and relaxation can accompany analgesics. Do not delay urgent pain treatment, and do not assume that a sleeping client has no pain. If pain is unrelieved or suddenly different, reassess and notify the provider. Nutrition and hydration require attention to swallowing, dentition, culture, and restrictions; aspirate before enteral feedings per policy and keep the head of bed elevated. Restraints are a last resort, require an order and monitoring, and are never for convenience.
Trap and worked example
Traps include documenting a pain score without reassessment, using restraints instead of supervision, and repositioning only when the client complains. Worked example: a client receives a PRN analgesic and reports the same severe pain 30 minutes later. The nurse reassesses, checks for new causes, and reports unrelieved pain rather than simply documenting it. Rule of thumb: comfort is an intervention that must be evaluated.