RN Nursing · Delegation and Supervision · Practice question
A nurse is working with an assistive personnel (AP) to care for a group of clients on the pediatric unit. Which of the following tasks should the nurse have the AP perform first?
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Collect a stool sample for ova and parasites from a school-age child.
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Engage a toddler in play.
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✓
Check to see if the elbow restraint is in place for an infant who is postoperative from a surgical correction of a cleft palate.
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Wash the hair of an adolescent who reports extreme fatigue and is scheduled for radiation therapy for the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma.
Answer & explanation
Correct: Check to see if the elbow restraint is in place for an infant who is postoperative from a surgical correction of a cleft palate.
Among the tasks listed, checking whether the elbow restraint is in place for a postoperative infant after cleft palate repair is the highest priority task to assign to the assistive personnel. Elbow restraints are used postoperatively in these infants to prevent them from touching the surgical site on their lip and palate, and their absence or improper placement could result in serious harm to the healing repair. This is time-sensitive and safety-critical. Collecting a stool sample for ova and parasites is a task the AP can perform, but it is not immediately urgent and does not carry the same acute safety implications. Engaging a toddler in play is appropriate AP work but is not a safety priority. Washing the hair of an adolescent scheduled for radiation therapy for Hodgkin lymphoma requires nursing judgment regarding the timing relative to therapy, scalp integrity, and the adolescent's energy level; it is not simply a hygiene task in this context and should be supervised or performed by the nurse. Because the infant's postoperative safety depends directly on the restraint being correctly in place, this task should be completed first, making it the correct priority delegation to the AP.
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