Follow Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for the NCLEX-RN

When you’re studying for a nursing exam, you can’t go wrong if you start with Abraham Maslow, the creator of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a laundry list of what people need most in life. Maslow will be your best friend when you take the NCLEX-RN.

Maslow’s hierarchy has it all. If you follow Maslow, your nursing care will be organized by priority, with the really important things — like the need to be breathing — always at the top of the list.

Setting priorities is a much bigger part of nursing than it may seem to you right now. Take my word for it: The ability to set priorities not only helps keep your future patients alive but also helps you finish your charting on time. Know Maslow well — and put him first in every situation.

Maslow divided the needs of people into six incremental stages, from most important to least important. Maslow’s needs are arranged in the form of a pyramid, with physiological needs (what everyone needs to live) on the bottom, holding everything else up, so to speak. After all, if you can’t breathe, you can’t have a new house or be a best-selling author because you’re dead. Everyone achieves the needs at the bottom of the pyramid, but not everyone achieves the needs at the top.

Notice that all needs are important, but some are way more important than others. This point is essential to remember not only on the exam but also when you’re working as a nurse and have to prioritize your six patients’ 101 needs in order of importance. For example, giving someone a bed bath is never as important as suctioning someone with a clogged endotracheal tube.

NCLEX-RN questions love to test your ability to prioritize in nursing situations. “What should you do first?” is a question you see frequently on the test. Obviously, you should first do what’s most important, and what’s most important is found in Maslow’s hierarchy at the bottom of the pyramid. Here are some quick guidelines for setting priorities in nursing care:

• Nurses decide priorities by assessing and analyzing.
• To assess priority, start with the ABCs — airway, breathing, circulation, or most life-threatening— and Maslow’s hierarchy.
• Priorities can be high, intermediate, or low.
• Treating potentially life-threatening problems before they become life-threatening is a high priority.
• Non-life-threatening needs are intermediate priorities.
• Low-priority needs are needs that aren’t related to the patient’s diagnosis.
• Always consider time and resources as laid out in the question.
• If the patient considers a problem important, then it is.