401007 Essay Including a Personal Reflection Assessment Answer

School of Nursing and Midwifery

401007 Approaches to Professional Nursing Practice Spring 2020

Unit Details

2.4 Assessment Details

2.4.1 Essay including a personal reflection

Aim of assessment

Standard 1 of the NMBA Registered Nurse Standards for Practice outlines the requirement for nurses to use best available evidence for safe, quality practice and to develop practice through reflection on experiences, knowledge, actions, feelings and beliefs (NMBA, 2016).

The aim of this essay is for students to describe, and reflect on, a nursing related event reported in the media and using the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) standards developed by ACSQHC (Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Healthcare) identify what nurses might do to improve their practice and reduce the risk of a similar error.

Details

A copy of the article of the nursing related incident and NSQHS standard that you must base your essay on is available on vUWS in the assessment 1 folder located in the assessments tab.

Students will write an appropriately structured essay that includes and/or addresses the following points. A guide to the number of words you may wish to use for each section is provided in brackets after each point.

• A concise introduction that identifies the incident to be discussed with background information, a thesis state- ment (a statement that tells the reader what you believe about the topic), and outline of the main ideas to be discussed in the essay (Approximately 150 words)
• A comprehensive description of the nursing incident including an explanation of the nurse’s role in the incident

(Approximately 150 words)

• Identify and explain the consequences of this incident for the nurse and the health consumer (patient and their family) (Approximately 150 words)
• Through the development of a nursing action plan, identify and describe the nursing actions that demonstrates

how the nurses can improve their practice in a way that prevents the incident reoccurring (Approximately 250 words)

• A brief reflection of the incident using the points below from Rolfe et al’s (2001) reflective model (1 or 2

sentences on each point below). (Approximately 150 words)

• What? What feelings did this event evoke (suggest) for you?
• So What? So what does this tell you about the nurse’s actions in this incident (were they appropriate, were they correct, was it best practice?). What do you think the nurse might have been thinking when the mistake occurred?
• Now What? Now what knowledge could the nurse have remembered and applied to ensure the incident didn’t

occur. Is there additional information the nurse needs in order to be safe?

• Use the link below to view Rolfe’s et al.’s (2001) reflective model and see an example of how this can be applied 
• A conclusion that concisely summarises the main ideas raised in the essay, restates the thesis statement and

concludes with a final statement (Approximately 150 words)

• Appropriate use of language and conventions, and appropriate support of relevant academic resources, including appropriate NMBA and ACSQHC standards throughout the essay
• Your introduction, main body and conclusion paragraphs in this essay must use 3rd person. However, your

reflection paragraph may use 1st or 3rd person

• Applies appropriate, academic resources and uses correct APA 7th style referencing both in text and on a complete reference list

There is a word limit of 1000 words. Use your computer to total the number of words used in your assignment. However, do not include the reference list at the end of your assignment in the word count. In-text citations will be included in the additional 10% word count. If you exceed the word limit by more than 10% the marker will stop marking at 1000 words plus 10%.