A nurse wants to assess a client's level of anxiety in order to determine how much of an ...

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Rationale: Asking the client to rate the level of anxiety allows the client to give a concrete response about a subjective phenomenon on which the nurse can base the decision about the dose of anti-anxiety agent medication to administer. Asking how the client is feeling today is too general to elicit the information necessary to determine dosing. Asking if the client is ready for the change of dressing will not elicit the information necessary to determine dosing. While asking about yesterday's response to medication may be an important assessment, today's anxiety might be substantially different (in either direction) than yesterday's.