Nursing diagnosis

A nursing diagnosis may be part of the nursing process and is a clinical judgment about individual, family, or community experiences/responses to actual or potential health problems/life processes. Nursing diagnoses foster the nurse's independent practice (e.g., patient comfort or relief) compared to dependent interventions driven by physician's orders (e.g., medication administration). Nursing diagnoses are developed based on data obtained during the nursing assessment. A problem-based nursing diagnosis presents a problem response present at time of assessment. Risk diagnoses represent vulnerabilities to potential problems, and health promotion diagnoses identify areas which can be enhanced to improve health. Whereas a medical diagnosis identifies a disorder, a nursing diagnosis identifies the unique ways in which individuals respond to health or life processes or crises. The nursing diagnostic process is unique among others. A nursing diagnosis integrates patient involvement, when possible, throughout the process. NANDA International (NANDA-I) is body of professionals that develops, researches and refines an official taxonomy of nursing diagnosis. All nurses must be familiar with the steps of the nursing process in order to gain the most efficiency from their positions. In order to correctly diagnose, the nurse must make quick and accurate inferences from patient data during assessment, based on knowledge of the nursing discipline and concepts of concern to nurses. NANDA-International, formerly known as the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association is the primary organization for defining, researching, revising, distributing and integrating standardized nursing diagnoses worldwide. NANDA-I has worked in this area for more than 45 years to ensure that diagnoses are developed through a peer-reviewed process requiring standardised levels of evidence, definitions, defining characteristics, related factors or risk factors that enable nurses to identify potential diagnoses in the course of a nursing assessment.