A Patient Is in the Late Stages of Liver Failure

question 12

Multiple Choice

A patient is in the late stages of liver failure with cirrhosis and progressive, irreversible damage. What should the nurse explain to the family?

• A) Liver transplantation is the only feasible treatment.
• B) Abstinence from alcohol may decrease further liver cell injury and improve portal hypertension.
• C) The liver is the only organ affected so that the patient and family need not worry about other body systems.
• D) If the patient does not have any variceal hemorrhages, he will probably live for years.

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Definitions:

Paired Distinctiveness

Illusory correlation in which items are seen as belonging together because they share some unusual feature.

Availability Heuristic

A cognitive short-cut in which the frequency or likelihood of an event is based on how quickly instances or associations come to mind.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision.

Representativeness Heuristic

A cognitive shortcut that involves judging the probability of an event by its similarity to a prototype, potentially leading to errors in judgment.