Nursing posters
LearnPosters has 100 free printable nursing posters, grouped into 7 topics: Fundamentals, Pharmacology, Assessment, Medical-surgical, Maternal & child. The frameworks, values and calculations nursing practice rests on. They are made for undergraduates, professionals and anyone revising the subject. Every one downloads as a vector PDF that prints sharp on US Letter, A4 or a copy-shop A1.
Assessment, pharmacology and care across the lifespan. Educational reference for students — always follow your programme, your protocols and your clinical supervisor.
100 free printable posters · 7 topics · vector PDF
Fundamentals
The nursing process, vital signs and documentation.
The Nursing Process
ADPIE — the five-stage cycle every nursing intervention is planned inside.
Vital Signs
The core observations, what each measures, and what alters it.
SBAR Handover
The four-part structure that turns a worry into a communicable clinical message.
Nursing Records
Contemporaneous, factual, attributable, complete — a defensible entry.
Writing a Care Plan
PES diagnosis statements and SMART goals — the two halves that blur.
Hand Hygiene Moments
The five moments, and how each one protects somebody different.
The Chain of Infection
Six links from organism to host, and the nursing action that breaks each.
Standard Precautions
The measures used for every patient, whatever the diagnosis.
Putting On & Taking Off PPE
Two orders, not mirror images — doffing is where contamination happens.
Assessing Pain
A structured pain history, and choosing a scale the patient can actually use.
Pressure Injuries
How the categories are graded, and the five-part prevention bundle behind SSKIN.
Fluid Balance Charts
Adding up intake and output, and reading the running balance.
Moving & Handling
The principles of a safe transfer, and the manoeuvres no longer taught.
Preventing Falls
Multifactorial risk, and the interventions that follow from each identified factor.
Setting Priorities
Three ordering rules — ABC, actual before potential, and unstable before stable.
Pharmacology
Drug classes, calculations and safe administration.
The Rights of Administration
The checks made before, during and after every medicine administration.
Dosage Calculation
One formula covers tablets, liquids and injections once units are matched.
IV Flow Rates
Drops per minute for a gravity set, millilitres per hour for a pump.
Weight-Based Dosing
Multiplying a per-kilogram dose out, then splitting it across the day safely.
Pharmacokinetics
What the body does to a drug — four stages that set dose and interval.
Agonists & Antagonists
What the drug does to the body: receptor occupancy and the response.
Half-Life & Steady State
Why regular dosing takes about five half-lives to plateau, and to wash out.
Routes of Administration
Speed, bioavailability and the practical trade-off each route brings with it.
The Analgesic Ladder
Stepped analgesia, with the adjuvants and monitoring beside every rung.
Antibiotic Classes
Five families, what each attacks, and the monitoring the class specifically needs.
Cardiovascular Drug Classes
Six classes, the lever each one pulls, and the observation that tracks it.
Insulin Profiles
Onset, peak and duration by type, and why the peak is when hypos happen.
Anticoagulants
What each anticoagulant group does, its monitoring and its bleeding risk.
High-Alert Medicines
The drugs whose errors do disproportionate harm, and the controls built around them.
Adverse Drug Reactions
The two-type classification, and why it changes what you do about the reaction.
Assessment
Systematic head-to-toe and focused assessment.
The ABCDE Approach
The sequence for the acutely unwell — each step treated before the next.
Head-to-Toe Assessment
A repeatable order for a full assessment, so nothing is left out.
The Four Techniques
Inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation — what each one can actually find.
Respiratory Assessment
What to look at, listen for and measure when breathing is the concern.
Cardiac Assessment
Perfusion, rhythm and volume status — the bedside before the machine.
Abdominal Assessment
The one examination where auscultation precedes touching the patient.
Glasgow Coma Scale
Three components, scored and reported separately as well as summed.
Neurovascular Checks
The six Ps distal to a fracture, cast or vascular injury, and what changes mean.
Wound Assessment
A structured description of a wound bed, so the next nurse can see what you saw.
Early Warning Scores
What an aggregate observation score is for, and the four ways it is misread.
Breath Sounds
Normal sounds by location, and the added sounds worth naming.
Heart Sounds at the Bedside
Where to listen, what S1 and S2 are, and how to describe an added sound.
Taking a Health History
The order of a nursing history, and where the patient's own account belongs.
What Pulse Oximetry Misses
A saturation reading answers one narrow question and stays silent about several others.
Medical-surgical
Common conditions and their nursing priorities.
Heart Failure: Left & Right
Which side fails decides where the fluid backs up, and so what you assess.
Chest Pain: Recognise & Escalate
What raises concern in chest pain, and the nursing role while help comes.
Stroke: Nursing Priorities
Recognising sudden focal deficit, escalating fast, and the checks before anything oral.
Sepsis: Recognise & Escalate
Sepsis suspected from infection plus new organ dysfunction, then escalated.
COPD & Asthma
Two obstructive diseases that behave — and are nursed — differently.
Hypo & Hyper
Two opposite emergencies, and the one measurement that separates them.
Electrolyte Imbalances
Four electrolytes, the signs of high and low, and what is monitored.
Reading a Blood Gas
Four questions in order that turn a gas result into a named disturbance.
Post-Operative Priorities
What the first hours after surgery are for, and what is watched.
How Wounds Heal
Four overlapping phases, their timescales, and what stalls a wound in each.
Acute Kidney Injury & CKD
A sudden, often reversible drop against a slow, staged and permanent decline.
Oxygen Delivery Devices
The common devices, their approximate delivered concentrations, and their limits.
Types of Shock
Four mechanisms of inadequate perfusion, and the one sign they share.
Preventing Blood Clots
Why hospital raises clot risk — mechanical and pharmacological answers.
Maternal & child
Pregnancy, birth, newborn and paediatric care.
The Stages of Labour
Four stages, what defines each, and the observations that belong to it.
The Three Trimesters
What changes in each third of pregnancy, and what antenatal care is looking for.
The Apgar Score
Five signs at one and five minutes, describing how a newborn adapts.
The Newborn Check
What the routine newborn examination covers, and what gets escalated.
Fetal Heart Monitoring
The elements of a systematic trace review, and why it is never read alone.
Recognising Pre-eclampsia
The signs that raise concern in pregnancy and afterwards, and why they are urgent.
Postpartum Haemorrhage
The four causes, why tone dominates them, and what the nursing role is.
Supporting Breastfeeding
Positioning, attachment and the signs a feed is going well, plus when to refer.
Children's Vital Signs
Why children's normal ranges shift with age, and what an outlier means.
The Paediatric Triangle
A first impression formed from across the room, before any equipment is used.
Developmental Milestones
Approximate ages for common milestones, and what actually prompts referral.
Children's Maintenance Fluids
The three-band per-kilogram method for a routine maintenance rate.
How Immunisation Works
Active and passive immunity, herd protection, and what genuine contraindications are.
Assessing Pain in Children
Choosing a pain tool that matches the child's age and ability to report.
Mental health
Assessment, risk and therapeutic communication.
Therapeutic Communication
The techniques that open a conversation, and the habits that close it.
The Mental State Examination
A structured description of how a person presents, in observable terms.
Risk Assessment as a Process
Why structured assessment guides care rather than predicting who will act.
De-escalation
Reducing arousal early — space, tone and choice, not confrontation.
Depression & Bipolar Presentations
Two mood presentations, what differs, and why the distinction changes care.
Anxiety in Practice
What anxiety does to the body and the thinking, and what helps.
Nursing a Person with Psychosis
Responding to experiences you do not share, without colluding or dismissing.
Trauma-Informed Care
Six principles that change how a service behaves, not a treatment for trauma.
Recognising Withdrawal
What withdrawal looks like by substance group, and which are dangerous.
Delirium & Dementia
An acute, fluctuating, often reversible state against a slow progressive one.
The Recovery Model
Recovery as a life worth living, defined by the person rather than by symptom counts.
Motivational Interviewing
A collaborative style for exploring ambivalence, not arguing for change.
Monitoring Psychotropics
What each medicine group needs watched physically, and why it is routine.
Language & Stigma
Wording that describes a person's experience without reducing them to it.
Professional practice
Ethics, law, delegation and safety.
The Four Principles
Autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice — where they collide.
Informed Consent
The three elements consent needs, and what a signed form does and does not prove.
Assessing Capacity
Capacity is decision-specific and time-specific, and is presumed until shown otherwise.
Confidentiality
A strong duty with recognised limits, and the tests applied before any disclosure.
Delegation
What can be delegated, to whom, and why accountability stays behind.
Scope of Practice
The four questions that decide whether an activity is yours to perform.
Reporting an Incident
What to do after a patient safety incident, in the order it needs doing.
If a Medicine Error Happens
The immediate priorities, and why concealment compounds the error.
Just Culture
Separating human error from at-risk behaviour and from genuine recklessness.
Raising a Concern
Graded assertiveness, and what to do when the first attempt does not work.
Evidence-Based Practice
Turning a clinical question into a searchable one, then weighing what comes back.
Clinical Governance
The pillars that hold a service accountable, and what each means daily.
Cultural Safety
From learning about cultures to examining power in your own practice.
Reflective Practice
A structured way to learn from an event, as opposed to ruminating.
Questions about the Nursing posters
- What is the Nursing section of LearnPosters?
- The frameworks, values and calculations nursing practice rests on. Assessment, pharmacology and care across the lifespan. Educational reference for students — always follow your programme, your protocols and your clinical supervisor.
- What topics do the Nursing posters cover?
- 100 posters across 7 topics. Fundamentals — The nursing process, vital signs and documentation. Pharmacology — Drug classes, calculations and safe administration. Assessment — Systematic head-to-toe and focused assessment. Medical-surgical — Common conditions and their nursing priorities. Maternal & child — Pregnancy, birth, newborn and paediatric care. Mental health — Assessment, risk and therapeutic communication. Professional practice — Ethics, law, delegation and safety.
- Who are the Nursing posters for?
- The nursing charts are pitched at undergraduates and professionals — the frameworks and equations a course keeps returning to. Nothing here is tied to a school year, so a curious beginner and someone revising the same material for an exam are looking at the same nursing chart.
- Which Nursing poster should I print first?
- The Nursing Process, Vital Signs and SBAR Handover are the ones people reach for first — they are the references the rest of the nursing set assumes you already have on the wall.The Nursing ProcessVital SignsSBAR Handover
- Are the Nursing posters free to print?
- Yes — all 100 of them. Each nursing poster is a free vector PDF that needs no account, prints on US Letter or A4, and enlarges to A1 without softening. Home, classroom, library and tutoring use are all covered by the licence.Read the licence
Where the nursing charts come from
These posters summarise. When you need the full account — or the normative text a chart is compressing — start here.
- MedlinePlus — US National Library of Medicine. Clinical reference. These charts are study aids, not care protocols.
- American Nurses Association standards — ANA. Scope and standards of practice behind the professional-practice sheets.