NCLEX-RN

The NCLEX-RN (National Council Licensure EXamination-Registered Nurse) is a computer-adaptive test of entry-level nursing competence. Passing the exam is required of candidates for licensure as a Registered Nurse (RN) by all US state and territorial Boards of Nursing.

The NCLEX-RN® and NCLEX-PN® examinations are developed and owned by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc. (NCSBN®). NCSBN administers these examinations on behalf of its member boards which consist of the boards of nursing in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S. territories American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands.

To ensure public protection, each board of nursing requires a candidate for licensure to pass the appropriate NCLEX® examination, NCLEX-RN for registered nurses and the NCLEX-PN for practical/vocational nurses. NCLEX examinations are designed to test the knowledge, skills and abilities essential to the safe and effective practice of nursing at the entry-level.

NCLEX examinations are provided in a computerized adaptive testing (CAT) format and are presently administered by Pearson VUE in their network of Pearson Professional Centers (PPC). Authorized testing centers are located throughout USA and in selected foreign countries, including the most recently approved the Philippines and Mexico. Click on external link and visit the NCSBN for a list of approved countries where the NCLEX exam is given.

The test is given only in English despites rumors and missinformation about the contrary, and there are no initiatives for translation of the exam to any foreign lenguage for now. The last attempts to do so have fallen short of an actual translation.

CAT is a method for administering tests that merges existing computer technology with modern measurement theory to increase the efficiency of the testing process. The NCLEX examination uses items with a variety of response formats, such as, single response multiple-choice, multiple response, fill-in-the-blank, drag and drop and a variety of display formats, such as, chart/exhibit displays, tables, and graphic images.

All items are developed and validated using the expertise of practicing nurses, educators and regulators from throughout the country. The content of the items of the NCLEX examinations is based on a practice analysis conducted every three years. There many well written preparation guidelines, manuals and textbooks on the how to score well on the NCLEX exam; all serve well and enhance the probabilities of the examinee when taking the exam. Some have bilingually edited for foreign educted nurses. The following are some strategies suggested by RN Educators from [Nclex-Masters.com] Content and Organization of NCLEX Exam

Strategy # 1

Plan NCLEX Know It Well

Your number #1 strategy is to know the content of the Nclex Plan which is the base for the NCLEX exam. Knowing what you’re about tested should your Strategy # 1. Make it your number strategy by going over the clinical areas of the NCLEX Plan and making sure to take notes about those clinical areas you don’t know and focus on them before moving to the next strategy.

Yes, read the whole plan. We suggest you do exactly that, but return to the content of the NCLEX Plan and determine what might be your weakest areas and reinforce your skills in those areas right away before moving to the next strategy and the next, and the next. All the content of the plan NCLEX reflects health needs of the patient in multiple scopes of adult patient, including the care of the geriatric patients, a relatively new concept in the modern nursing.

A. Safe and Effective Care Well-taken care of Environment- Safe and Effective Interventions.

The central idea of nursing intervention in USA hospitals is on a ‘safe and effective intervention following the principles and processes of modern nursing’.

The nurse must promote and direct a care that provide a safe and effective intervention always. This principle must guide the student taken the NCLEX exam at all times as well since the exam is built to measure how safe and effective the new nurse intervenes a patient by demonstrating the application of those principles throughout the nursing process.

Management of care and Safety and Infection Control - can include an understanding and applications of skills on the following areas of care: •	Advance directives •	Case management •	Rights of the Patients •	Concepts of Administration •	Confidentiality •	Consultation with Healthcare Team •	Continuity of care •	Improvements to the care •	Delegation - •	Establishing priorities of intervention •	Ethical practices •	Irregular Incidents/occurrence/reports •	Informed consent

Practice…....Makes the Masters..!!!

Nclex-Masters program includes a clinical rationalization of each answer identifying the cognitive levels corresponding each question, as well as FEEDBACK or immediate answer the same ones to facilitate the memorization, understanding, analysis, and application of the principles that govern the exam. Measures on Safety and Infection Control - include knowledge to protect to the patient and the personnel on health and/or occupational dangers: •	Accident prevention - •	Disaster planning - •	Error prevention - •	Material Handling hazardous and infectious •	Medical asepsys- •	Standard universal precautions - •	Restrains uses –do’s and don’ts

B. Health Promotion and Maintenance – Through promotion and maintenance of health the nurse provides and directs well-taken care of that incorporate the knowledge of principles of the crecimieto and development, and to the prevention and detection of health problems.

Birth, Growth Development.

Content related to these areas can include the following thing, without exclusions: •	The Geriatric process-gerontologia •	Before/Intra/Postpartum and Newborn-el childbirth and new born •	Development stages and transitions-development and transitions •	Changes to Body physical Image-Change •	Family planning - familiar Planning •	Family systems familiar Systems •	Human sexuality- human Sexuality

Prevention and Early Detection of Disease This knowledge allows the nurse to attend the patient and identify the alterations in the patient’s health and develop and promote the physical and/or psychological well being of the patient.

Content related to these areas can include the following thing, without exclusions: •	Disease prevention - •	Health and wellness - •	Health promoting programs - •	Health screening - •	Immunizations - •	Lifestyle choices - •	Physical Techniques of assessment

C. Psychosocial Integrity - Psycho-Social Integrity.

Here the nurse provides and directs the care of the patient, and promote and gives emotional, mental and social support for the well-being of the client. Promotes the use mechanisms of support and adaptation to face of health condition caused by physical disability and/or “stress” or mental tension.

Content related to these areas can include the following thing, without exclusions: •	Coping mechanisms – psychology basic principles •	End of life - Lost of life •	Grief and lost - Pain •	Mental health concepts - •	Religios and Spiritual influences in health - •	Sensory/perception alterations - •	Situatinal role changes •	Strees management •	Support systems •	Therapeutics interactions •	Unexpected body image changes Psycho-Social Adaptation - Sico-Social Adaptation

To the concept of Psycho-social integrity also belongs the knowledge of how to provide care for patients with deficits of adaptation, as well as those with mental acute and chronic diseases.

Content related to these areas can include the following thing, without exclusions: •	Behavioral interventions •	Chemical dependency •	Child abuses and neglect •	Crisis intervention – •	Domestic violence •	Elder abuses and neglect •	Psychopathology •	Sexual it abuses •	Therapeutic milieu

D. Physiological Integrity In this area nurse promotes the physical health and well-being of the patient providing taken care of and comfort, reducing risk factors, and administering to the alterations of health of the patient continuously.

Content related to these areas can include the following thing, without exclusions: •	Assistive devices •	Elimination •	Mobility and immmobility •	Non-pharmacological interventions •	Oral Nutrition and hydration •	Palliative/comfort care •	Personnel hygiene •	Rest and sleep –

To the concept of the physical integrity of the patient also includes Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies, drug administration or other substances.

Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies

Content related to these areas can include the following thing, without exclusions: •	Adver effect and contraindications - •	Blood and blood products •	Power station venous access devices •	Chemotherapy •	Expected effects •	Intravenous therapy •	Medication administration •	Perenteral fluids •	Pharamcological actions/reactions •	Pharmacological agents •	Pharamcological interactions •	Pharmacological pain administration •	Side effects •	Parenteral total nutrition

Reduction of Risk Potential The nurse provides care including intervention that can diminish the potential of resulting complications of conditions, treatments or procedures for the care of the patient. Content related to these areas can include the following, without exclusions: •	Diagnostic tests •	Laboratory readings/estimates •	Pathophysiology •	Potential alterations in body systems •	Potential complications of diagnostic test, procedures, surgeries •	Therapeutic procedures

Physiological Adaptation The nurse provides patient care with acute, chronic or threatening diseases to the health and/or life of the patient. Content related to these areas can include the following thing, without exclusions: •	Alterations in body systems •	You flow s and electrolytes imbalances •	Hemodynamics •	Infectious disease •	Medical emergencies •	Pathophysiology •	Radiation therapy •	Respiratory care •	Unexpected response to therapies

In general Strategy # 1 of the Nclex Master preparatory program is to understand the content and organization of the NCLEX Plan as designed by the NCSBN.

The second general strategy is to know like using this manual in an effective way following that NCLEX plan. The NCSBN-NCLEX plan is designed to measure the minimum academic skills of a recently graduated nurse assuring therefore a safe and effective intervention of all patients.

The examination revolves around the following pre-established principles of nursing practice and the nurse is expected to do the following:

1.	To provide Safe and Effective care 2.	To promote and maintain the health of patients 3.	To take care of the Physiological Integrity of patients 4.	To take care of the Psycho-Social Integrity of patients

In general all your cognitive learning levels will in be needed while taking the Nclex exam, and as long as you practice nursing.

The Nclex examination demands of examinees the following cognitive learning levels:

a) recalling facts or memorizing b) analysis c) application principles.

The Nclex Master Manual – Effective Use of the its Content

The fundamental objective of the manual is that student reach a total understanding of the strategies and the clinical content reviewed, and at the end of practicing its strategies, the examinee can discern the ‘root’ of each question, and is able to identify each question as being one relating to ‘assessment’, ‘analysis’, ‘implementation’, ‘planning’ and/or ‘evaluation’ of treatment.

At the same time can determine the priority of interventions, delegation of the same, the use of drug related to most disorders, and can safely and effectively intervene a patient when caring for the physical or psycho-social integrity of a patient guided by all nursing principles or established practices.

Clinical review

The clinical review on Nclex Masters manual includes anatomy and basic physiology of each organic system and d physical disorders associated with each organic system. This Nclex Masters manual does not pretend to be a clinical nursing textbook or try to cover all the clinical content of any disease; it content simply focuses on the basic clinical knowledge for nurses who practice in U.S.

The concentration of this manual is on the application of general and specific strategies to be able successfully to apply the clinical knowledge the examinee already has as a recently graduated nurse.

The manual review the areas of:

1.	physiology, anatomy of organic systems 2.	diseases and physical disorders 3.	nursing intervention 4.	drug administration 5.	Nomenclature and abbreviations

The manual presents information seeking to familiarize the examinee with certain abbreviations, names of syndromes, procedures, and/or drugs, etc, that are commonly used in USA hospitals.

What kind of psychometric instrument is the NCLEX exam? The NCLEX is a metric-academic instrument of classed as a ‘power test’ and pretends measuring the skills and the application of minimum principles of nursing by an aspiring to nurse who have recently graduated or is a foreign educated RN already. And it’s not a Seven Heads People Eating Monsters, we can assure you that.

Reminder number for yourself should be : the NCLEX exam is about basic nursing intervention ONLY. You will not find questions about Open heart intervention fo complexity beyond what was taught in school to you and your classmates…!

The examination this based on the level of difficulty of the questions answered by the examinee, and not how fast answers are given, however, there is a limit of time of 6 hours, which makes the test not entirely a “power test” which usually give unlimited time to examinees. Visit our www.Nclex-Masters.com and click Inside the Nclex on Nclex Strategies page to see the Nclex test as designed by its Educational Psychologists.

Questions and Answers vs the Nclex Difficulty Levels If the examinee correctly answers what seem easy questions for his/her level, the test increases its difficulty until determining the level of application of knowledge the examinee finds difficult. The questions posed are not too hard, and not to easy either as determined by internal intelligence of the software. Examinees tend to guess on too hard to answer questions, and not demonstrate enough knowledge if only too easy questions are presented.

The exam tries that the examinee answers as many questions correctly as those answered by the groups of “standardization”; that is all the examinees that have passed the test answering the levels of difficulty in this metri-academic measurement, and used as the ‘standard group’. However, the exam is individualized and each examinee receives a group, or set of questions from a “pool” of questions assigned to the examinee only by way of the software managing the exam. The test consists of “pool” or database of 265 questions retired of a greater other “pool” of approximately 3000 questions previously validated statistically.

What do the questions measure? This “base of questions” is programmed to select questions necessary to measure the cognitive levels and nursing application of principles in several clinical areas; from maternity to the psychiatry nursing, without excluding any clinical areas.

How many questions I must answer before passing of failing? As average the examinee answers between 75 to 80 questions, and not 265 as it’s generally known. These 75 to 80 questions cover several clinical areas with interventions defined beforehand, and based on the effective and safe care of the patient according to Plan NCLEX.

Exam content
The majority of test items are written at the application or higher levels of cognition but the exam may include items at all of the cognitive levels.

The exam's content is based on client needs:
 * Safe Effective Care Environment
 * Management of Care
 * Safety and Infection Control
 * Health Promotion and Maintenance
 * Psychosocial Integrity
 * Physiological Integrity
 * Basic Care and Comfort
 * Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies
 * Reduction of Risk Potential
 * Physiological Adaptation

Question types
Most of the questions of the NCLEX-RN exam are worded multiple choice questions. In recent years, however, the Boards of Nursing have added broader questions that don't involve choices. For example, some questions:
 * Require identifying and selecting a particular area of a drawn body part pertaining to the question
 * Involve selecting multiple correct answers (via check box)
 * Calculating an answer for a mathematical question (usually for medication dosages) and inputting the answer