Effective communication is vital to constructing an accurate and detailed patient history. A patient’s health

or illness is influenced by many factors, including age, gender, ethnicity, and environmental setting. As an advanced practice nurse, you must be aware of these factors and tailor your communication techniques accordingly. Doing so will not only help you establish rapport with your patients, but it will also enable you to more effectively gather the information needed to assess your patients’ health risks.

For this Discussion, you will take on the role of a clinician who is building a health history for one of the following new patients:

• 76-year-old Black/African-American male with disabilities living in an urban setting
• Adolescent Hispanic/Latino boy living in a middle-class suburb
• 55-year-old Asian female living in a high-density poverty housing complex
• Pre-school aged white female living in a rural community
• 16-year-old white pregnant teenager living in an inner-city neighborhood

To prepare:

With the information presented in Chapter 1 in mind, consider the following: