You may or may not be aware of this, but when you or your child is seen by a doctor, everyone present at that appointment, or hospital stay, is being assessed. While your doctor makes a medical diagnosis, his/her nurse is making a nursing diagnosis.
What is a nursing diagnosis?
Nursing diagnosis is defined as “a clinical judgment about individual, family, or community experiences/responses to actual or potential health problems/life processes. A nursing diagnosis provides the basis for selection of nursing interventions to achieve outcomes for which the nurse has accountability.” (Herdman, 2012, p. 515).
The medical diagnosis provides one important piece of data, but it does not provide anywhere near the depth of information necessary for making an accurate nursing diagnosis.
While considering the medical diagnosis, the wise nurse looks past the medical diagnosis to the patient, in a way that meshes clinical information and intuitive wisdom in a singular fashion. What a nurse does is so different from medicine that it really does require a unique language to represent it.
In 1973, the First National Conference on the Classification of Nursing Diagnoses was held in St. Louis, Missouri, where attendees produced a beginning classification – an alphabetized list of nursing diagnoses.
In 2002, NANDA (North American Nursing Diagnosis Association) became NANDA International (NANDA-I) in response to requests from its growing base of membership from outside North America. The acronym of NANDA was retained in the name because of the name recognition, but it is no longer merely “North American”, and in fact boasts members from 40 countries as of 2014.
NANDA-I’s mission is to facilitate the development, refinement, dissemination and use of standardized nursing diagnostic terminology, worldwide. In support of that mission, they actively seek and participate in alliances with colleagues working in areas related to nursing diagnosis.
Below are some nursing diagnoses related to CMTC-OVM’s. You will find the definitions and risk factors, as well as the actions/interventions a nurse may perform. Check back often, as we continue to add to this list.
Risk for Caregiver Role Strain
