family planning

planning

 [plan´ing]

consciously setting forth a scheme to achieve a desired end or goal. The planning phase of the nursing process provides a blueprint for nursing interventions to achieve specified goals. A plan of nursing care includes nursing diagnoses arranged in order of priority, goals or objectives that give direction and purpose to nursing intervention, nursing orders that encompass nursing activities necessary to achieve specified goals, and criteria by which it is possible to evaluate the effectiveness of nursing intervention and the plan of care. In most instances the goals or objectives can be used as outcome criteria for the evaluation phase of the process.

Goals or objectives in the care plan should be stated in behavioral terms, that is, they should describe what the patient will be able to do as a result of nursing interventions. If they are to be useful as criteria for evaluation, they should be measurable and realistic. Nursing orders are the nursing actions and patient activities prescribed by the nurse to achieve the stated goals and objectives.

discharge planning in the nursing interventions classification, a nursing intervention defined as preparation for moving a patient from one level of care to another within or outside the current health care agency. See also discharge planner.

family planning the practice of birth control measures within the context of family values, attitudes, and beliefs; including oral contraceptives, diaphragm, condom, and natural family planning; see also contraception.

family planning, natural methods of avoiding conception without the use of artificial contraceptive means; see discussion under contraception. Called also fertility awareness methods.

family planning: contraception in the nursing interventions classification, a nursing intervention defined as facilitation of pregnancy prevention by providing information about the physiology of reproduction and methods to control conception. See also contraception.

family planning: infertility in the nursing interventions classification, a nursing intervention defined as management, education, and support of the patient and significant other undergoing evaluation and treatment for infertility.

family planning: unplanned pregnancy in the nursing interventions classification, a nursing intervention defined as facilitation of decision making regarding pregnancy outcome.

Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. © 2003 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.

family planning

n.

A program to regulate the number and spacing of children in a family through the practice of contraception or other methods of birth control.

The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

family planning

Social medicine The constellation of activities, in particular, fertility control–timed contraception and planned conception, undertaken by a heterosexual couple of childbearing yrs to achieve the desired birth spacing and family size. See Fertility, Griswold v. Connecticut

McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

family planning

A conscious decision as to the number and spacing of children born, effected by the use of CONTRACEPTION.

Collins Dictionary of Medicine © Robert M. Youngson 2004, 2005

family planning

see BIRTH CONTROL.

Collins Dictionary of Biology, 3rd ed. © W. G. Hale, V. A. Saunders, J. P. Margham 2005