Editing Category:Nutrition

'''Nutrition''' is the study of how the body takes in, digests, absorbs, and uses food and fluids to support growth, tissue repair, immune function, and energy production. In nursing education, this subject covers macronutrients and micronutrients, therapeutic (modified) diets, enteral and parenteral nutrition, nutritional assessment, nutrition across the lifespan, and the laboratory values that reflect nutritional status. It also covers the practical side of feeding a patient safely: aspiration precautions, tube feeding management, intake and output, and the food and drug interactions that can undo an otherwise good plan of care.

Nutrition matters in nursing practice because nutritional status touches nearly every outcome nurses are held accountable for. Malnourished patients have delayed wound healing, higher rates of pressure injury, longer hospital stays, weakened immune response, and greater mortality. Conversely, excess or poorly matched intake drives hyperglycemia, fluid overload, and electrolyte derangements. Diet is also a primary treatment, not just supportive care: a sodium restriction is therapy for heart failure, a protein and potassium restriction is therapy for chronic kidney disease, and consistent carbohydrate intake is therapy for diabetes mellitus.

Nurses own much of the nutrition plan at the bedside. They screen for nutritional risk on admission, monitor weights and intake and output, position patients for safe swallowing, verify feeding tube placement, recognize refeeding syndrome and tube feeding intolerance, and reinforce diet teaching in language the patient and family can actually use. Nutrition is also a frequent point of interprofessional referral, and knowing when to involve the registered dietitian, the speech language pathologist, or the provider is part of safe practice.

On the NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN examinations, nutrition questions appear across the Basic Care and Comfort, Physiological Adaptation, Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies, Reduction of Risk Potential, and Health Promotion and Maintenance client need categories. Registered nurse candidates are tested on more complex care planning, including total parenteral nutrition management, complex diet teaching, and prioritization. Practical and vocational nurse candidates are tested on basic diet monitoring, feeding assistance, accurate intake and output documentation, and knowing which findings must be reported to the registered nurse or provider.

[[Category:Nursing Education]]
[[Category:Registered Nurse (NCLEX-RN)]]
[[Category:Licensed Practical Nurse (NCLEX-PN)]]
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