What it means
What the client reports about their own experience: pain, nausea, dizziness, worry, how they slept. It is often written in the client's own words, in quotation marks. Objective data are what the nurse observes or measures, such as vital signs, a wound's size or a lab value. Both are collected in the assessment step of the nursing process.
For the nurse
Record subjective data accurately and without judging it. Pain is whatever the client says it is: believe the report even when objective signs do not match.
In a chart
"Client states, 'My stomach feels like it is burning,' rates pain 6/10."
Remember it
Subjective is what they Say; objective is what you Observe.
Easy to confuse with
objective data
Information the nurse can observe, measure or test, such as vital signs, exam findings and lab results.
Related terms
assess
To gather information about a client by looking, listening, asking, measuring and examining.
nursing process
The step-by-step method nurses use to plan and give care: assess, diagnose, plan, implement and evaluate.
objective data
Information the nurse can observe, measure or test, such as vital signs, exam findings and lab results.