With COMMUNITY-BASED NURSING CARE: MAKING THE TRANSITION, students learn everything they need to know about providing direct nursing care to clients in community settings.The book offers practical skills and knowledge about the services community-based nurses provide and about the varied client populations they serve. It covers the many community settings in which nurses provide care, including the home, clinics, schools, shelters, and residential centers. * Written in an easily understood conversational style to facilitate student comprehension. * Offers learning objectives for each chapter as an overview of chapter content. * Provides key terms with definitions to highlight important terminology. * Contains student quotes for student commentary on each chapter. * Features resources boxes and suggested readings lists that provide additional sources of chapter information and promote further study. * Includes key points that summarize important chapter information to aid in student review. * Presents critical thinking questions that promote problem-solving abilities and challenge reasoning skills. * Includes application exercises that provide practical learning activities to challenge students to apply chapter material outside the classroom. * Provides assessment boxes that present how-to information to assess clients for specific disorders. * Incorporates case studies that present "real-life" clinical community situations. * Details specific nursing assessment and treatment information for many major illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, which are essential components of community-based nursing. * Devotes separate chapters to the pediatric, adult, and elderly developmental stages, stressing the unique issues related to nursing care for these populations. * Includes a separate chapter on nursing care for maternal-infant clients, who are often seen only in community settings. * Features a separate chapter on clients with mental health disorders, a population prevalent in community-based settings, that emphasizes the unique matters related to care of clients with these disorders. * Includes a separate chapter devoted to legal and ethical considerations related to community-based nursing. * Incorporates a two-color design throughout, helping highlight key information and providing a user-friendly resource for students. (Includes a FREE MERLIN website at: www.harcourthealth.com/MERLIN/Ayers/)