Occupational Challenges, Nursing Roles, and Bowel Elimination

Vocabulary flashcards covering nursing occupational stressors, public health roles, environmental sustainability, and the anatomy, physiology, and clinical assessment of bowel elimination.

Occupational challenges

Challenges including communication barriers, poor work-life balance, inadequate training, lack of career advancement, and poor leadership.

Burnout

A state of emotional exhaustion related to chronic stress, reduced effectiveness, overwhelming workload, and a lack of control.

Compassion Fatique

Secondary traumatic stress characterized by emotional numbing and nightmares, featuring a more acute and sudden onset than burnout.

Prevention of Burnout

Strategies including prioritizing self-care, sleeping an effective amount of time, setting clear boundaries between work and personal life, and seeking support.

Nurse Role in Public Health

Involves education, disease prevention/control, community-focused programs, and administration of vaccines.

Normal Bowel Elimination

A process that begins in the mouth and ends as waste products (feces/stool) are eliminated from the anus (defecation).

Peristalsis

The movement of GI contents and flatus through the colon which results in gurgles, clicks, and ticking sounds known as bowel sounds.

Small Intestines (Absorption)

The site where nutrients and enzymes are absorbed during the digestive process.

Colon (Absorption)

The site where most water is absorbed during the elimination process.

Timing of elimination

Usually occurs $30$ minutes to $1$ hour after eating.

Passageway for feces

The sequence starting at the cerum, followed by the ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, and sigmoid colon.

Stretch receptors

Receptors in the intestinal walls stimulated by the distention of the sigmoid colon by fecal mass, sending impulses to the CNS.

Normal Feces Consistency

Soft and formed.

Abnormal Feces Consistency

Liquid, watery, unformed, hard, or dry.

Abnormal Feces Shape

Balls, clumps, broken off, ribbon-shaped, flat, or pencil-like.

Normal Feces Color (Others)

Light to dark brown (in individuals other than infants).

Abnormal Feces Color

Red blood, black, pale, white, or clay.

Abnormal Feces Infection Indicators

The presence of pus, mucous, foamy textures, or feces floating on water.

Focused Abdominal Assessment

Observing for a rounded or flat shape (not distended or inflated) and auscultating bowel sounds in all $4$ quadrants at least $1$ time per week.

Impaction/intestinal blockage (Auscultation)

Characterized by hyperactive bowel sounds proximal to the blockage and distant or absent sounds distal to the blockage.

Normal Bowel Sounds

Soft gurgles and irregular clicks occurring $5-30$ per minute.