Assessment is key component in nursing, it is required in planning and provision of patient centered care. Physical assessments of adults and children are the same apart from a few variations. It is good practice to consider the level of education of every patient when communicating, explain procedures and what you are about to do calms the patient. Adults can easily comprehend what is going on and they understand explanations unlike children who are not conversant with assessments. Physical assessment of both child and adult should be done using the four techniques, Inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation. Both objective and subjective data should be collected when doing an assessment. Pain is part of the assessment (Thrane, Wanless, Cohen, & Danford, 2016). Considering the psychosocial stage of development will help in examining the child in accordance with their development stage, how you handle communication with this child will also affect how the child will relate to you. The nurse will use age-appropriate language when asking questions to the child, avoiding jargon terms in communication makes it easy for them to effectively communicate and give you the needed information. It is also important to provide a conducive atmosphere that is non-threatening and comfortable for the child. (Lancet, 2017). Establish trust between the child and the nurse let the child know that they can trust you be friendly, smile and offer emotional support. Children need to feel safe, if they have stranger anxiety allow them to be held by the parent during examination. Allow the child to handle the objects used during examination explain what every object is used for, doing this will help reduce anxiety. Consider which assessment to complete last, keep in mind that a child’s attention is very short therefore assess before their interest is gone and they start crying. Engage the parents to answer questions that cannot be answered by the children. Parents will help in a child’s assessment by calming them down and answering important questions.

References,

Babakr, Z. H., Mohamedamin, P., & Kakamad, K. (2019). Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory: Critical Review. Education Quarterly Reviews, 2(3), 517–524. Lancet, T. (2017). How best to assess children presenting to emergency care. The Lancet, 389(10076). https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30870-X