knowledge
[nŏ´lej] the ability of a client to remember and interpret information.
knowledge deficit (specify) a nursing diagnosis approved by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association, defined as the absence or deficiency of cognitive information related to a specific topic. For purposes of assessing knowledge deficit, setting objectives, and planning and implementing patient teaching, three broad areas or domains are recognized: the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor domains. These were devised by Benjamin S. Bloom and colleagues as a part of a taxonomy of educational objectives, whose purpose is to classify and better identify specific goals for teaching, learning, and evaluation of outcomes of the process.
The cognitive domain deals with the recall or recognition of knowledge and the development of intellectual abilities and skills. The affective domain encompasses interest, attitudes, and values. The psychomotor domain is the manipulative or motor-skill area of learning.
Learning objectives in each of these domains should be stated in behavioral terms. Educators contend that a change in behavior is evidence that learning has taken place. Hence, criteria by which one judges whether learning has occurred are written in terms of what the learner is able to do as a result of instruction. In the cognitive domain a goal of learning might be that the patient verbalizes dosage of prescribed medication, its expected actions, and any untoward reactions to be reported. In the affective domain, a change in attitude or value is observed as a change in behavior. Thus the fact that a patient loses the desired amount of weight in a specific period of time while following a special diet is evidence that the diet is valued and therefore has been followed. In the psychomotor domain a goal could be that the patient is able to take and record his or her own blood pressure accurately each day.
The overall purposes of assessing and implementing plans for correction of a knowledge deficit are to assist the patient and family members (1) to promote their own health and that of family members, (2) to maintain current health status and improve it as much as possible according to each person's capabilities, and (3) to improve to the fullest one's self-care abilities.
Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. © 2003 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.