After a visual inspection of a client's abdomen, what should the nurse do next in the examination?

After visually inspecting a client's abdomen, the next step in the examination should be auscultation. This is because auscultation allows the nurse to listen for bowel sounds and vascular sounds, providing valuable information about the gastrointestinal tract and circulation. Conducting auscultation before palpation or percussion is crucial because these latter techniques may alter bowel sounds, leading to inaccurate findings.

If palpation were performed first, it could stimulate bowel activity or introduce extraneous sounds, which would interfere with the assessment of normal or abnormal functioning of the digestive system. Therefore, auscultation is the appropriate next step in this sequence of abdominal examination, ensuring that findings remain unaffected by the techniques that follow.