Basic human needs achievement by nursing undergraduate students basic human needs achievement by nursing undergraduate students

Abstract

The fourteen human basic needs (HBN) described by Henderson define the Nursing care spectrum. It is a nurse duty, regarding the basic human needs, to support and improve the health status, in helping the patient to raise self awareness of the HBN. The present article is the result of a descriptive-exploratory study that aims at evaluating the time that the first year-students of the Nursing course from the Health School of the University of Aveiro - Portugal, spend to satisfy their basic human needs throughout a week. An exploratory study was developed based on a quantitative approach. For data collection, a diary instrument built of seven record sheets for registering of the student time was elaborated. By the data analyses, it was concluded that students had spent more time to sleep, resting and learning, reaching 60,06% of the weekly total occupation time. Although variations in the time spent for the satisfaction of the diverse needs throughout the week do exist, those are not significant. The need to prevent harm and to follow according to beliefs and values were the ones that students had spent less time.