Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
the outcomes of these interventions, nurses and midwifes can
articulate and clarify their roles and functions in relation to both the
settings in which they work and the patients and clients to whom
they deliver care (Thoroddsen, 2005).
Introduction of a common nursing language using
standardised nursing care plans
In the past, nurses as well as other health care professionals had
difficulty in describing nursing and what it is nurses do (Thoroddsen,
2005). Nursing is often described as a list of tasks, which requires
certain skills. The North American Nursing diagnosis association
(NANDA), The Nursing Intervention Classification system (NIC) and
Nursing Outcome Classification (NOC) are comprehensive
standardised classifications of diagnosis, interventions and
outcomes of the interventions that nurses perform (Needleman et
al, 2002) A classification of nursing interventions is needed to
standardise the language that nurses use to describe their specific
behaviours when delivering nursing treatment (Pelletier et al, 2005)
When nurses systematically document the diagnosis of their
patients, the treatment they perform and the resulting patient
outcomes using a common standardised language, they then will be
able to determine which nursing interventions work best for a given
diagnosis and nursing as a profession will gain recognition for that
demonstrated contribution to describe patient outcomes
(Thoroddsen, 2005).
What is the Nursing Language (www.nanda.org)
� It is comprehensive in that it includes a full range of nursing
interventions from general practice and speciality areas.
Interventions include physiological and psychosocial, illness
treatment and prevention, health promotion, those for
individuals, families and communities, and indirect care; both
independent and collaborative interventions are included.
� It is research based. The research, which began in 1987, used
a multi method approach; methods include content analysis;
questionnaire survey to experts, focus group review, similarity
analysis, hierarchical clustering, multidimensional scaling, and
clinical field-testing.
� It was developed inductively based on existing practice.
Original sources were current textbooks, care planning guides,
nursing information systems from clinical practice augmented
by clinical practice expertise of team members and experts in
specialty areas of practice.
� It reflects current clinical practice and research. A list of
background readings that support the development of the
intervention accompanies all interventions. Also all
interventions have been reviewed by experts in clinical practice
- 507 -