Question

Can I determine the steps for an individualized plan of care?

Can I determine the importance of culture in my nursing practice?

How can we as nurses maintain good outcomes such as early discharge for your patients?

Can I determine the importance and examples of collaborative practice model?

Can I define Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs concepts? And the meaning

Can I define jurisdiction for my nursing practice? Scope of practice

Can I determine the importance of my patient’s culture when creating educational interventions?

Can I determine which factors the nurse needs to understand when planning care for his/her patient? Health

Can I determine how to properly educate elderly patients on performing daily wound care? steps

Can I determine the priority nursing diagnoses for my patient?

Can I determine my nursing actions when working in a community health clinic to promote health promotion?

Can I determine the importance of evidenced-based practice when conducting quality improvement programs?

Can I determine my priority when admitting new patients to my unit? My first nursing action-

Can I determine the important factors that should be included when planning the provision for health care system?

Can I determine the different activities that are included when conducting health promotion for our communities? smoking

Can I determine the importance of culture when educating my patient about their medical condition?

Can I determine who need to be included when educating patients about his/her illness?

Can I speak to which activities that demonstrate health promotion teaching for your community?

Can I determine what information need to be included when educating my patients about their medical conditions?

Can I determine the importance of return demonstration when educating my patients?

Can I determine proper assessment for my patient who has on wrist restraints?

Can I state the principles of health promotion?

Can I determine the importance of keeping my patient’s linen dry?

Can I determine my actions to reduce infection when bathing my patient? steps

Can I explain to my patient the importance and rationale for oral care?

Can I explain and demonstrate proper steps for patient transfer technique?

Can I explain to my patient how to use his/her crutches? Walk, sitting, stairs

Can I speak to proper steps for handwashing?

Can I explain how to put on and remove my personal protective equipment in the correct order? Separate and both for DOFF- Different Isolations and PPE required for each

Can I speak to my assessment and possible findings for patients who have wrist restraints intact?

Can I recognize when my patient is ready to be educated about new information?

Can I speak to the importance of return demonstration?

Can I speak to proper transfer for my patient with weak legs?

Can I define healthcare associated infection?

Can I determine x-ray transportation procedure for my patient who is in airborne isolation?

Can I speak to if nursing staff or students have problems with patient’s visiting policy for my medical unit?

Can I determine the steps prior to performing my patient’s dressing change?

Can I apply sterile gloves without contaminating following the correct steps?

Can I recognize when my patient needs a social worker consult?

Can I perform oral care on my unconscious patient?

Can I determine my nursing actions if my patient falls?

Can I speak to the rationale for handwashing?

Can I recognize patient’s ethical dilemmas on my nursing unit?

Can I perform proper denture care? cleaning

Can I recognize when I need to fill out fall risks assessment for my patient?

Can I recognize when my patient’s IV catheter needs to be removed after my assessment?

Can I determine the correct steps for placing my patient in his/her wheelchair?

Can I determine the importance of my patient’s gait belt and when to use?

Can I state the different phases of the nurse-client relationship?

Answer 1

Greetings of the day! (kindly send maximum 1 question with maximum 4 subpart questions at a time)

Answer :

Can I determine the steps for an individualized plan of care?

The common thread uniting different types of nurses who work in varied areas is the nursing process—the essential core of practice for the registered nurse to deliver holistic, patient-focused care.

Assessment
An RN uses a systematic, dynamic way to collect and analyze data about a client, the first step in delivering nursing care. Assessment includes not only physiological data, but also psychological, sociocultural, spiritual, economic, and life-style factors as well. For example, a nurse’s assessment of a hospitalized patient in pain includes not only the physical causes and manifestations of pain, but the patient’s response—an inability to get out of bed, refusal to eat, withdrawal from family members, anger directed at hospital staff, fear, or request for more pain mediation.

Diagnosis
The nursing diagnosis is the nurse’s clinical judgment about the client’s response to actual or potential health conditions or needs. The diagnosis reflects not only that the patient is in pain, but that the pain has caused other problems such as anxiety, poor nutrition, and conflict within the family, or has the potential to cause complications—for example, respiratory infection is a potential hazard to an immobilized patient. The diagnosis is the basis for the nurse’s care plan.

Outcomes / Planning
Based on the assessment and diagnosis, the nurse sets measurable and achievable short- and long-range goals for this patient that might include moving from bed to chair at least three times per day; maintaining adequate nutrition by eating smaller, more frequent meals; resolving conflict through counseling, or managing pain through adequate medication. Assessment data, diagnosis, and goals are written in the patient’s care plan so that nurses as well as other health professionals caring for the patient have access to it.

Implementation
Nursing care is implemented according to the care plan, so continuity of care for the patient during hospitalization and in preparation for discharge needs to be assured. Care is documented in the patient’s record.

Evaluation
Both the patient’s status and the effectiveness of the nursing care must be continuously evaluated, and the care plan modified as needed.

Can I determine the importance of culture in my nursing practice?

Everyday routines that the predominant culture takes for granted such as time orientation, eye contact, touch, decision-making, compliments, health-beliefs, health-care practices, personal space, modesty, and non-verbal communication can vary dramatically between cultures, sub-cultures, and religions.

Different Cultures Have Different Practices

Practices that might be considered unethical to an autonomous American (e.g. allowing a family member to speak for and dictate all medical care and decisions for an aging parent), or disrespectful/suspicious to a Caucasian (e.g. avoiding direct eye contact), or curious to a nutritionist (e.g. not allowing a child to eat heated foods when they have certain illnesses), could be the acceptable practice of your patient’s culture.

Related: 7 Important Elements Of An Inspiring Nursing Career

Cultural competence is defined as the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients.

Why is cultural competency important in nursing?

Cultural competency in nursing practice is the cornerstone of providing superior care for people of all cultures. It is relevant in our everyday lives, but even more so for nurses who regularly care for patients in their most vulnerable state.

When a patient enters medical care, they may be highly stressed because of pain, nerves, fear, and worry. If they are accompanied by family members, the stress is intensified as these emotions are compounded.

Comforting patients during this time is crucial.

It’s easy to understand the importance of cultural competence in nursing as it allows you to comfort those with different beliefs and gives you an opportunity to provide care at the highest level.

Three Practices To Help Patient Interactions

The trend of today’s healthcare leans toward being more inclusive of personal and cultural preferences. This demands a knowledgeable and open response from caregivers. What can we, as nurses, do to facilitate this trend toward honoring individual choices and beliefs, even when we are not fully aware of them? By incorporating three practices, we can make these interactions both easier and more successful.

Awareness

One of the most important elements emphasized in pursuit of competent cultural care is identifying your own beliefs and culture before caring for others. According to Culture Advantage, an organization formed to help individuals develop cross-cultural awareness and communication skills, “Caregivers are expected to be aware of their own cultural identifications in order to control their personal biases that interfere with the therapeutic relationship. Self-awareness involves not only examining one’s culture but also examining perceptions and assumptions about the client’s culture.” Developing this self-awareness can bring into view the caregivers biases or culturally-imposed beliefs. It can also shed light on oppression, racism, discrimination, and stereotyping and how these affect nurses personally and their work.

As an example, a nurse might learn that a patient participates in folk medicine, which incorporates certain unfamiliar healing rituals, or promotes the ingestion of an array of plant-based concoctions as mixed and prescribed by a healer. Without examining his/her own beliefs, the nurse might judge those practices as primitive or scientifically bogus without having a clue about the cultural or symbolic meaning. Meanwhile, the following Sunday that nurse may head to a church service donning a crucifix around her neck—a violent death symbol to the casual observer—where she recites strange, nonsensical liturgy back to a man dressed in a robe and consumes a little cracker and grape juice or wine and calls it “the body and blood of her savior.”

To the outside observer, this could seem primitive, superstitious, or even bogus, but to the participant, these rituals are rich with meaning and even healing.

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Acceptance

A successful physician with more than forty years of experience in family medicine recently told me, “I frequently tell my patients that the key to healing is loving and accepting yourself.” What an insightful statement. Acceptance becomes a powerful tool, but one that demands solidarity between nurse and patient.

How can patients love and accept themselves in ways that promote healing if we, as nurses, are not willing to offer them acceptance in their myriad of problems and complexities? Through the simple act of acceptance, nurses can become an agent of healing, whether or not they are aware of it.

This is the premise of Margaret Newman’s nursing theory, “Health as Expanding Consciousness,” whereby through the nurse’s presence and acceptance, the patient becomes empowered during times of personal duress or chaos to make lasting changes that promote hope, well being, and an increasingly satisfying state of “health”—one that is not dependent upon the absence or presence of disease.

In other words, healing has meaningful implications that reach beyond the current medical model’s definition as “the absence of disease.” As the patient is able to articulate meaningful events of life and to be heard without judgment, he or she becomes more conscious or “awakened” to patterns that have blocked health progress, and therefore able to choose transformational behaviors, with the continuing support of the nurse.

Asking

There is no way nurses can be expected to be aware of and practice cultural sensitivity at all times because most religions and cultures have been developed over centuries and are replete with practices that carry symbolic meaning. When in doubt, the best way to provide sensitive care to patients of diverse cultures is to ask.

When you initiate care during your initial assessment, ask if there are any cultural or religious practices or beliefs that you need to know about in order to respect and support their needs. Many of them are used to living out their own subculture within the greater American culture and they will probably know by experience how to educate you on their care. If they are unsure or unaware of their unique needs in the healthcare setting, reassure them that you are willing to adjust your care based on their values if they do become aware of any issues. Encourage them to communicate those needs to you as they happen to arise.

Moving Ahead

The trend in health care is to allow for more liberty in patient choices and involvement, as well as the ability to carry out their normal practices as much as possible.

Sensitive cultural care is not just a phenomenon that takes place when occasionally encountering foreigners in the hospital or providing care to someone of a different religion. It is the result of the awareness that everyone belongs to a unique subculture based on beliefs and practices and the mindful consideration and space given to each and every patient. The conscientious nurse can affirm, respect, and nurture all patients through deliberate awareness, acceptance, and asking.

How can we as nurses maintain good outcomes such as early discharge for your patients?

The 10 steps of discharge planning:

• Ready to Go - No Delays, one of the High Impact Actions (NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, 2009), offers a 10-step process for planning the discharge or transfer of patients.
• For simple discharges carried out at ward level, the process should be standardised throughout an entire hospital. The key to making this or any process work consistently in an organisation is to adapt it to fit existing systems and processes; it is helpful to involve patients and their families in this process.
• Although the 10 steps are not prescriptive, they should all be considered and should form the framework for audit and review of the discharge or transfer process.
• Start planning before or on admission - In elective care, planning can commence before admission and may take the form of a screening tool, risk assessment or care pathway. The principle is to anticipate potential delays and manage those in a proactive manner. With the advent of the Liverpool Care Pathway and the renewed focus on end-of-life issues, care pathways exist to facilitate rapid discharge for patients at the end of life on admission to acute services.
• In emergency, unscheduled care, advance planning is not possible, so robust systems to gather patient information must be in place - pivotal sources include the GP, primary care team and carers.
• Identify whether the patient has simple or complex needs- Identifying the likely patient pathway from admission or before should enable you to recognise when simple becomes complex. A simple discharge is one that can be executed at ward level with the multidisciplinary team (MDT); funding issues, change of residence or increased health and social care needs make the discharge complex.
• Develop a clinical management plan within 24 hours of admission- Most patients admitted by junior medical staff will have an outline management plan. The extent of MDT involvement may be minimal depending on the time of admission. For example, admissions after 5pm will be reviewed by the team the next day on the ward round. Ward rounds, therefore, become inextricably linked to management plans. Ultimately, a management plan should engage and focus the whole MDT with the patient to plan the aspects of care required leading to discharge.
• Coordinate the discharge or transfer process - Although most clinical areas have developed systems in which coordinators are allocated to discharge planning, there is a lot of disparity between these roles. Some use clerical staff to coordinate simple tasks, while others employ nurses up to band 7; some rotate nurses into a daily shift coordinator role, while others hold the role of discharge coordinator full time. Communication, MDT working and assessment are three key roles for discharge coordinators.
• Set an expected date of discharge within 48 hours of admission - This has proved incredibly tough to implement and embed within organisational philosophy. The patient’s discharge date should be estimated as early as possible to guide the discharge-planning process; the date can then be refined with reassessment of the patient’s progress against the clinical management plan (Webber-Maybank and Luton, 2009). The estimated discharge date has three purposes:
  • Strategic: to predict overall hospital capacity;
  • Operational: to assess progress and outcomes of clinical plans;
  • Individual: for patients to understand expectations, limitations and what is required from them in the discharge-planning process (Lees and Holmes, 2005).
• Review clinical management plan daily -Provided the clinical management plan was commenced on admission, the review with the patient should be relatively straightforward. Review, action, progress (RAP) is the process suggested by the National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare (NLIAH, 2008). The important aspect is to update the plan with the MDT and the patient (Efraimsson et al, 2003).

Can I determine the importance and examples of collaborative practice model?

A Model of Collaborative Practice

Jones and Way have developed the Structured Collaborative Practice© model based on their definition and key concepts. This model demonstrates the relationship between health care providers, the patient/family/community and practice setting. The overall purpose is to deliver comprehensive care with health care providers contributing professional knowledge and skills plus individual experience and expertise to deliver comprehensive care in an efficient and effective manner, while retaining the integrity of each profession.

As previously described, collaboration is a process which is flexible and dynamic. It also occurs within a spectrum or continuum of increasing interdependence. The diagram refers to the collaborative process within a practice team.

At the far left on the spectrum is Independent Parallel Practice. Decisions are made and care is given by a single provider acting within his/her scope of practice.

In the middle of the spectrum is Consultation/Referral. This involves more integrative or interdependent decision-making. Once consultation or referral is complete, care may return to the independent practice of the lead or primary provider or move on to a higher degree of interdependent practice. Part of the responsibility of all regulated providers is to clearly know when to consult with or refer to another professional.

At the far right on the spectrum is Interdependence Co-provision of Care. This involves the highest degree of collaboration amongst the health care team and is most appropriate in complex patient situations where innovative decisions are needed and co-provision best supports the patient and family. It also supports the needs of the providers by sharing the workload and ensuring that knowledge and skills are well used.

Depending on the complexity of the health care challenges and needs of the patient. Everyone is a complex person - we are focusing on the complexity of health care problems and needs for each individual patient.

7 Essential Elements of Collaboration

1. Cooperation

2. Assertiveness

3. Autonomy

4. Responsibility/Accountability

5. Communication

6. Coordination

7. Mutual Trust and Respect

Importance:

Recent studies and reports indicate a growing consensus that interprofessional collaborative patient-centered practice, across all health sectors and along the continuum of care, contributes to:

• improved population health / patient care;
• improved access to health care;
• improved recruitment and retention of health care providers;
• improved patient safety and communication among health care providers;
• more efficient and effective employment of health human resources; and
• improved satisfaction among patients and health care providers.

However, working collaboratively is not always easy. Each setting of care has local, distinct, and multiple factors that can either support or be a barrier to collaborative practice. These are referred to as Practice Setting Variables and fall into 4 categories.

• Provider variables e.g. personal and professional maturity, willingness to collaborate, knowledge, skills and experience with collaboration
• Patient variables e.g. health needs, demographics, willingness to receive care from teams, cultural and health care values
• Organizational or work setting variables e.g. governance, management structures, policies and procedures, communication and coordination mechanism, scheduling, infrastructure (supplies and equipment), staffing, community resources, providers on or off site, geographic location
• Systemic variables e.g. variables external to the organization or work setting such as professional legislation and licensure, federal/provincial/territorial government policies, funding mechanisms, professional socialization and education, medical-legal issues, health human resource planning

• "Within each category, practice setting variables can either be supports for (facilitators, enablers) or constraints to (barriers) collaboration."

Can I define Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs concepts? And the meaning

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.

Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

Deficiency needs vs. growth needs

This five-stage model can be divided into deficiency needs and growth needs. The first four levels are often referred to as deficiency needs (D-needs), and the top level is known as growth or being needs (B-needs).

Deficiency needs arise due to deprivation and are said to motivate people when they are unmet. Also, the motivation to fulfill such needs will become stronger the longer the duration they are denied. For example, the longer a person goes without food, the more hungry they will become.

Maslow (1943) initially stated that individuals must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. However, he later clarified that satisfaction of a needs is not an “all-or-none” phenomenon, admitting that his earlier statements may have given “the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 percent before the next need emerges” (1987, p. 69).

When a deficit need has been 'more or less' satisfied it will go away, and our activities become habitually directed towards meeting the next set of needs that we have yet to satisfy. These then become our salient needs. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even become stronger once they have been engaged.

Growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person. Once these growth needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.

Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of self-actualization. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by a failure to meet lower level needs. Life experiences, including divorce and loss of a job, may cause an individual to fluctuate between levels of the hierarchy.

Therefore, not everyone will move through the hierarchy in a uni-directional manner but may move back and forth between the different types of needs.

The original hierarchy of needs five-stage model includes:

Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others.

Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on.

1. Physiological needs - these are biological requirements for human survival, e.g. air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, warmth, sex, sleep.

If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot function optimally. Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until these needs are met.

2. Safety needs - Once an individual’s physiological needs are satisfied, the needs for security and safety become salient. People want to experience order, predictability and control in their lives. These needs can be fulfilled by the family and society (e.g. police, schools, business and medical care).

For example, emotional security, financial security (e.g. employment, social welfare), law and order, freedom from fear, social stability, property, health and wellbeing (e.g. safety against accidents and injury).

3. Love and belongingness needs - after physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behavior

Examples include friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).

4. Esteem needs are the fourth level in Maslow’s hierarchy - which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige).

Maslow indicated that the need for respect or reputation is most important for children and adolescents and precedes real self-esteem or dignity.

5. Self-actualization needs are the highest level in Maslow's hierarchy, and refer to the realization of a person's potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. Maslow (1943) describes this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be.

Individuals may perceive or focus on this need very specifically. For example, one individual may have a strong desire to become an ideal parent. In another, the desire may be expressed economically, academically or athletically. For others, it may be expressed creatively, in paintings, pictures, or inventions.

Maslow posited that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy:

"It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread. But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled?

At once other (and “higher”) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers, dominate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still “higher”) needs emerge and so on. This is what we mean by saying that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative prepotency" (Maslow, 1943, p. 375).

Maslow continued to refine his theory based on the concept of a hierarchy of needs over several decades.

Regarding the structure of his hierarchy, Maslow (1987) proposed that the order in the hierarchy “is not nearly as rigid” as he may have implied in his earlier description.

Maslow noted that the order of needs might be flexible based on external circumstances or individual differences. For example, he notes that for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for love. For others, the need for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.

Maslow (1987) also pointed out that most behavior is multi-motivated and noted that “any behavior tends to be determined by several or all of the basic needs simultaneously rather than by only one of them” .

Hierarchy of needs summary

(a) human beings are motivated by a hierarchy of needs.

(b) needs are organized in a hierarchy of prepotency in which more basic needs must be more or less met (rather than all or none) prior to higher needs.

(c) the order of needs is not rigid but instead may be flexible based on external circumstances or individual differences.

(d) most behavior is multi-motivated, that is, simultaneously determined by more than one basic need.

The expanded hierarchy of needs

It is important to note that Maslow's five-stage model has been expanded to include cognitive and aesthetic needs and later transcendence needs.

Changes to the original five-stage model are highlighted and include a seven-stage model and an eight-stage model; both developed during the 1960s and 1970s.

1. Biological and physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.

3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).

4. Esteem needs - which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige).

5. Cognitive needs - knowledge and understanding, curiosity, exploration, need for meaning and predictability.

6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.

7. Self-actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. A desire “to become everything one is capable of becoming”.

8. Transcendence needs - A person is motivated by values which transcend beyond the personal self (e.g., mystical experiences and certain experiences with nature, aesthetic experiences, sexual experiences, service to others, the pursuit of science, religious faith, etc.).

Self-actualization

Instead of focusing on psychopathology and what goes wrong with people, Maslow (1943) formulated a more positive account of human behavior which focused on what goes right. He was interested in human potential, and how we fulfill that potential.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that human motivation is based on people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. Self-actualized people are those who were fulfilled and doing all they were capable of.

The growth of self-actualization (Maslow, 1962) refers to the need for personal growth and discovery that is present throughout a person’s life. For Maslow, a person is always 'becoming' and never remains static in these terms. In self-actualization, a person comes to find a meaning to life that is important to them.

As each individual is unique, the motivation for self-actualization leads people in different directions (Kenrick et al., 2010). For some people self-actualization can be achieved through creating works of art or literature, for others through sport, in the classroom, or within a corporate setting.

Maslow (1962) believed self-actualization could be measured through the concept of peak experiences. This occurs when a person experiences the world totally for what it is, and there are feelings of euphoria, joy, and wonder.

It is important to note that self-actualization is a continual process of becoming rather than a perfect state one reaches of a 'happy ever after' (Hoffman, 1988).

Maslow offers the following description of self-actualization:

'It refers to the person’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially.

The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions' (Maslow, 1943, p. 382–383).

Characteristics of self-actualized people

Although we are all, theoretically, capable of self-actualizing, most of us will not do so, or only to a limited degree. Maslow (1970) estimated that only two percent of people would reach the state of self-actualization.

He was especially interested in the characteristics of people whom he considered to have achieved their potential as individuals.

By studying 18 people he considered to be self-actualized (including Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein) Maslow (1970) identified 15 characteristics of a self-actualized person.

Characteristics of self-actualizers:

1. They perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty;

2. Accept themselves and others for what they are;

3. Spontaneous in thought and action;

4. Problem-centered (not self-centered);

5. Unusual sense of humor;

6. Able to look at life objectively;

7. Highly creative;

8. Resistant to enculturation, but not purposely unconventional;

9. Concerned for the welfare of humanity;

10. Capable of deep appreciation of basic life-experience;

11. Establish deep satisfying interpersonal relationships with a few people;

12. Peak experiences;

13. Need for privacy;

14. Democratic attitudes;

15. Strong moral/ethical standards.

Behavior leading to self-actualization:

(a) Experiencing life like a child, with full absorption and concentration;

(b) Trying new things instead of sticking to safe paths;

(c) Listening to your own feelings in evaluating experiences instead of the voice of tradition, authority or the majority;

(d) Avoiding pretense ('game playing') and being honest;

(e) Being prepared to be unpopular if your views do not coincide with those of the majority;

(f) Taking responsibility and working hard;

(g) Trying to identify your defenses and having the courage to give them up.

The characteristics of self-actualizers and the behaviors leading to self-actualization are shown in the list above. Although people achieve self-actualization in their own unique way, they tend to share certain characteristics. However, self-actualization is a matter of degree, 'There are no perfect human beings' .

It is not necessary to display all 15 characteristics to become self-actualized, and not only self-actualized people will display them.

Maslow did not equate self-actualization with perfection. Self-actualization merely involves achieving one's potential. Thus, someone can be silly, wasteful, vain and impolite, and still self-actualize. Less than two percent of the population achieve self-actualization.