Nursing Students’ Diagnoses Used in Care Plans Prepared Within the Scope of Child Health Lesson and Their Views on Preparing A Care Plan

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the diagnoses used by nursing students in the care plans that they prepared within the scope of the Child Health and Diseases Nursing course and their views on preparing a care plan.Method: A descriptive, cross-sectional design was used. The sample of the study consisted of students who had taken the Child Health and Diseases Nursing course at a state university in the 2020-2021 academic year. The data were collected using the “Student Information Form”, “Form for Evaluating Students' Opinions on Preparing Care Plans” and “Form for Listing the Diagnoses Used by Students in Care Plans”. Continuous variables were presented as mean±standard deviation values; categorical variables were summarized as numbers, percentages.Results: The mean age of the students was 21.53±1.31 years, and 86.7% of them were female. It was determined that 91.6% of the students had received education on care planning during their vocational education and that 61.8% of them found the education adequate. Students had the most difficulty during the data collection phase while preparing a care plan, and the majority of nursing diagnoses they made were in the nutrition-metabolic domains.Conclusion: Students had positive opinions about preparing a care plan, but they thought there were some complicating factors. It was found that they had difficulties in all stages of the process. Keywords: Care plan, child nursing, nursing diagnose, nursing process