Nursing Interventions for Risk for Injury
Nursing Interventions and Rational for Risk for Injury
- Monitor the client’s behavior for cues of rising anxiety. R: Behavioral cues signal increasing anxiety.
- Determine emotional and situational triggers. R: Knowledge of triggers is used in planning ways to prevent or manage outbursts.
- Intervene early with verbal comments or limits and/or removal from the situation. R: Potential outbursts can be defused through early recognition, verbal intervention, or removal.
- Give plenty of notice when having to change routines or rituals or end pleasurable activities. R: Children often react to change with catastrophic reactions and need time to adjust.
- Provide support for the recognition of feelings, reality testing, impulse control. R: These competencies are often underdeveloped in these children.
- If the client does not respond to verbal interventions, use therapeutic holding.Some might need special restraints (helmets, mittens, special padding) R: Therapeutic holding reassures the client that the adult is in control; feelings of security can become feelings of comfort and affection.
- Help the client connect feelings and anxiety to self-injurious behaviors. R: Self-control is enhanced through understanding the relationship between feelings and behaviors.
- Help the client develop ways to express feelings and reduce anxiety verbally and through play activities. Use various types of motor and imaginative play (e.g., swinging, tumbling, role playing, drawing, singing). R: Methods for modulating and directing the expression of emotions and anxiety must be learned to control destructive impulses.