Care of Minor Illness and Minor Trauma
Learning outcomes (level 6)
Intended Learning Outcomes
On successful completion, you will be able to:
1. Apply knowledge of the pathophysiology of minor illness/injury
2. Critically reflect on the skills of assessment in relation to patients who present with minor illness/injury, acknowledging the bio-psycho-social needs of the patient and their family
3. Review the different needs of 3 specific patient groups – children, older people and people with a mental health disorder, who present with minor illness/injury
4. Examine the relevant evidence, clinical guidelines and healthcare policy which relate to therapeutic interventions used to treat patients with minor illness/injury
5. Critically reflect upon how this module has transformed your knowledge and skills and its application to your practice
Introduction (Approx. 100 words)
Case Presentation 1 – A Minor Illness (Approx. 1000 words)
Case Presentation 2 – A Minor Injury (Approx. 1000 words)
Appraisal of Specific Patient Groups (Approx. 550 words)
Conclusion (Approx. 100 words)
Reference list (Harvard Method)
Appendices (if required)
Introduction (Approx. 100 words)
Begin the assignment with an introduction to explain to the reader the purpose of the assignment. This should be a very brief outline only. As you will be making reference within the assignment to patient cases you yourself have been involved with, ensure you make clear within the introduction that confidentiality has been maintained and any patient details have been anonymised. This should be supported by a reference to your professional regulatory body. If you choose to write your assignment in the first person, a reference should be inserted justifying why you have chosen this approach.
Case Presentation 1 – A Minor Illness (Approx. 1000 words)
Within this section you need to discuss a specific care episode you have been involved with relating to a patient presenting with a Minor Illness.
To preserve your word count and avoiding the need to tell the reader the story of what happened, running the risk the writing becoming too descriptive, we recommend that you place a description of the care episode within the appendices of your assignment and refer to it within the main body of your text. You could “set the scene” within the main body of text however limit this to a couple of sentences.
Within this section of your assignment, you will specifically focus on learning outcomes 1, 2 and 4. Your discussion of the case needs to demonstrate your ability to critically analyse the care that was given and the interventions that were utilised in the management of the problem. The analysis must demonstrate your ability to appraise the relevant evidence (including research evidence, policy and clinical guidelines) in order to determine whether the patient’s management was congruent with current evidence. In order to ensure your analysis addresses the module learning outcomes (LO’s) within your case presentation you must:
LO1 – Apply your knowledge of the relevant pathophysiology and evidence based management relating to the minor illness you have chosen.
LO2 – Critically reflect on the skills of assessment and triage used in relation to this patient, and how the the bio-psycho-social needs of the patient and their family were acknowledged and met.
Please note this is not a critical reflection of how you performed when undertaking the assessment. The work needs to critically discuss the application of assessment skills such as using a structured approach to the assessment e.g. SOAPE and symptom analysis tools such as SOCRATES. What did the assessment process tell you about the patient’s condition and how did this help with the subsequent management. Using a reflective model is NOT needed here and will result in the work being descriptive and not meeting the learning outcome.
LO4 Examine the relevant evidence, clinical guidelines and healthcare policy which relate to the therapeutic interventions you used to treat this patient.
Case Presentation 2 – A Minor Injury (Approx. 100 words)
Within this section, you will repeat the process outlined above, this time focusing on a patient who presented with a Minor Injury.
Appraisal of Specific Patient Groups (Approx. 550 words)
LO3 requires you to critically appraise the different needs of specific patient groups, including children, older people and people with a mental health disorder who present with minor illness / injury. In this section you need to demonstrate how patient assessment and management is adapted to accommodate the needs of these specific patient groups. You may wish to within this section specifically focus on how assessment and triage may be adapted. It is paramount that the work is related to the patient presenting with a minor illness or injury, throughout. We recommend that you address each group individually, as this will help focus the writing. All 3 patient groups should be addressed to meet the learning outcome.
For this learning outcome please write a short summary of your learning achievements and provide an action plan for your continued and future learning needs. Start with where you felt your level of knowledge of minor illness and injury was before you studied this module, continuing to highlight how you have developed your knowledge, outlining how this new learning can be applied in your practice, supported by good quality evidence from the literature. You may want to use a reflective model template for this. Examples of these are Gibbs Reflective cycle (1988), or Rolf’s (2001) What? So what? Now what? These are not mandatory and a paragraph discussing your practice and implementation of these skills will also be acceptable. As this section is discussing your personal practice, the use of the first person writing in this section is appropriate, even if you have used the third person in the rest of the assignment.
Conclusion (Approx. 100 words)
Finish off the assignment with a conclusion summarising the key points you have made within the essay.
Reference list (Harvard Method – As per current Cite them Right guidelines)
Your written work should be formatted:
12 point font size,
Verdana,
1.5 line spaced or double spaced
Justify the margins
