How to Approach a Respiratory Nursing Care Case Study at DkIT
To approach a respiratory nursing case study, choose one patient you nursed, anonymise everything, and let the Roper, Logan and Tierney model and the nursing process carry the structure. Spend the biggest share of your words on assessment, three prioritised problems and evaluation, and link every drug and intervention to your patient’s signs. Do that within the limit and you cover most of what the marking grid rewards.
If you are short of time, our case study writing service can build a draft to your own brief and placement notes.
What the assessment is really asking
The NURS N8284 respiratory nursing care case study at DkIT is a 2,000-word written case about one real patient with a respiratory condition. It is not a textbook essay on COPD or asthma. Markers want to see a person, a condition, clinical reasoning and evidence, in that order.
The brief asks you to use the Roper, Logan and Tierney model and the nursing process, include a focused respiratory assessment, set out three prioritised nursing problems and explain the pharmacology. It also expects prevention and education, current national and international evidence, and DkIT Harvard referencing. Pseudonyms are required for the patient, ward and hospital.
The word count excludes the reference list, but check your brief for the deadline, submission route and any penalty rules, because we do not repeat those here.
Word and mark split
The brief gives mark weightings for each section, so use them to allocate your words. A sensible match is shown below. The word figures are suggested, not set by the university.
| Section | Marks (from the brief) | Suggested words |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction and presentation of the individual | 5 | 150 |
| Understanding the respiratory condition | 20 | 400 |
| Assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation | 30 | 600 |
| Pharmacological management | 15 | 300 |
| Prevention, education and ongoing care | 15 | 300 |
| Conclusion | 5 | 100 |
| Reference list | 10 | Not counted |
Notice that the care-planning section carries the most marks, while the condition itself carries 20. Many students do the reverse and write 800 words of pathophysiology.
Step-by-step plan
- Pick a patient whose care you can describe in detail, with a clear respiratory diagnosis and enough drug therapy to discuss.
- Pseudonymise the patient, ward and hospital, and remove dates, ages that identify and any unusual personal detail.
- Write down the patient’s activities of living under the Roper, Logan and Tierney headings, and mark where breathlessness changes each one.
- Choose three problems and rank them, starting with airway, breathing and circulation issues.
- Give each problem a goal, interventions with rationale, and an evaluation.
- Select two or three drugs you actually saw given and look up action, dose route, side effects and nursing checks in the BNF.
- Find current evidence, such as the GOLD report for COPD or national guidance for asthma, and the HSE model of care.
- Draft, trim to the limit, check every citation against the list, and proofread.
Section-by-section guidance
Introduction and presentation of the individual
State the pseudonym, the confidentiality approach and why you chose the case, then give a brief clinical picture. Mention the NMBI Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics on confidentiality, since it shows professional awareness. Do not describe the whole admission here.
Understanding the respiratory condition
Cover epidemiology in Ireland and globally, causes and risk factors, and pathophysiology. The trick is to tie each mechanism to your patient. If he had wheeze, explain bronchoconstriction. If saturations were low, explain ventilation-perfusion mismatch. This turns a generic section into a personalised one.
Assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation
Start with a focused respiratory assessment: airway, respiratory rate and pattern, work of breathing, oxygen saturation, auscultation findings, sputum, early warning score and any blood gas results. Then apply the activities of living and select the three problems that matter most.
A table works well here because it lets you show goal, intervention, rationale and evaluation in a small space. Keep the evaluation honest. A goal that was only partly met, with a clear next step, usually reads better than a perfect outcome.
Pharmacological management
Choose drugs that link to your problems, for example a bronchodilator, a corticosteroid or an antibiotic. For each, explain the mechanism in a sentence, the reason it was given to this patient, the main adverse effects and what the nurse monitors. Check that your dose and route match national prescribing guidance rather than what you remember from the ward.
Prevention, education and ongoing care
Describe teaching you gave or saw given: inhaler technique, smoking cessation, vaccination, recognising deterioration and pulmonary rehabilitation. Mention the community team and the GP, and say how you would check that the patient understood, such as teach-back.
Conclusion
Summarise the patient, the three problems and what the case taught you. Add nothing new, because the brief gives this section only a small mark share and new content will be ignored or penalised.
If you also have a nursing assignment in another module, our nursing and healthcare assignment help page lists what we can support.
What a higher-scoring answer looks like
| Area | Weaker sentence | Stronger sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment | The patient was breathless and given oxygen. | On admission the patient’s respiratory rate was 28, saturation 86% on air and he was using accessory muscles, so controlled oxygen was started with a target range set by the team. |
| Problem statement | The patient had breathing problems. | Impaired gas exchange related to airway inflammation and mucus, shown by low saturation and wheeze. |
| Pharmacology | Salbutamol opens the airways. | Salbutamol relaxes bronchial smooth muscle, which relieves bronchoconstriction, and the nurse checks pulse and tremor after each dose. |
| Evaluation | The care worked well. | By day three the respiratory rate had fallen and the goal was met, but inhaler technique still needed reinforcement before discharge. |
Mark-maximising checklist
- Pseudonyms used for patient, ward and hospital, with no identifying detail.
- Roper, Logan and Tierney activities of living used with purpose, not listed in full.
- Exactly three problems, ranked, each with goal, interventions, rationale and evaluation.
- Pathophysiology linked to the patient’s actual signs.
- Each drug explained by action, reason, side effects and nursing checks.
- Education described with a method of checking understanding.
- Person-centred care shown through the patient’s own goals.
- Sources are current and mix national and international evidence.
- Every in-text citation appears in the DkIT Harvard list and vice versa.
- Conclusion contains no new information.
Common mistakes
- Writing a disease essay. Long definitions and statistics leave too few words for the nursing process, which carries the most marks.
- Listing every activity of living. Twelve short paragraphs use up your count. Focus on those most affected.
- Vague problems. “Breathing difficulty” is a symptom, not a nursing problem with a cause and a measurable goal.
- Copying drug facts. Markers want the reason this patient received the drug, not a pasted leaflet.
- Weak confidentiality. Leaving a real ward name or exact date can cost marks and breach professional standards.
- Old sources. Using an out-of-date guideline when a newer edition exists suggests you have not read current practice.
- Reference mismatches. The brief gives separate marks for in-text accuracy, list accuracy and matching the two.
Student worries and pain points
“My patient was not typical.” That is fine. A less typical case often lets you show stronger reasoning, provided you explain why care differed from guidance.
“I only watched, I did not give the drugs.” Write what you observed and what the nurse’s responsibilities were. You can still discuss monitoring and rationale.
“Two thousand words feels too tight.” Cut background first. Protect assessment, problems, evaluation and pharmacology.
“I cannot find Irish evidence.” Start with the HSE national clinical programme material and the NMBI Code, then add international guidelines for comparison.
Our university assignment help page explains how we support students across Irish institutions when a deadline is close.
See a worked structure
To see these ideas in a layout, read our reference sample for a respiratory nursing case study, for study use only. It uses a fictional COPD patient, a planning table, an activities-of-living table and a three-problem care plan, so you can compare structure with your own draft. For a different case-study format, our guide to writing a nutrition case study in nursing and the matching nutrition case study sample show the same discipline applied to another topic.
FAQs
Can I use a fictional patient in my submission?
The brief asks for a patient you nursed on placement, so use a real case with pseudonyms. A fictional patient is fine for practice and study only.
How many nursing problems should I include?
The brief asks for three prioritised problems. Rank them and explain the order, usually with airway and breathing first.
Do I need to describe all twelve activities of living?
No. Show how you used the model, then concentrate on the activities most affected by the respiratory condition.
Which drugs should I discuss?
Choose two or three that your patient received and that link to your problems. Explain action, reason, adverse effects and nursing checks.
What counts as current evidence?
Recent guidelines and reports, such as the latest international COPD or asthma strategy, HSE material and the NMBI Code. Check dates, because guidance is updated often.
Is the reference list part of the word count?
The brief states it is excluded. Check your own brief and cover sheet for the final rule on presentation and submission.
If you would rather have a specialist draft your case study to your own placement notes and referencing needs, you can submit your assignment brief for a quote today.
Written by
Ireland Assignment Helper Editorial Team
Our editorial team works with students in Ireland and sees the questions they ask most often. This guide is built from those real queries: where students get stuck, what markers look for and how to plan the work step by step.
