Nursing Diagnosis

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A Nursing Diagnosis is a functional description of a patient's state of being, symptom, or reaction to a circumstance such as a disease process. It is distinct from Medical Diagnosis which is a description of the physical pathology. This is important since nurses cannot legally provide a medical diagnosis. The Nursing Diagnosis consists of a North American Nursing Diagnostic Association (NANDA) label with related factors and diagnostic criteria.

Nursing diagnosis was quite popular from about 1980 but interest appears to have declined recently.

An example of a common Nursing Diagnosis is as follows: Alteration in comfort: Pain (acute) related to surgical incision and inflammatory process as evidenced by guarding, grimacing, muscle rigidity, moaning, and patient complaint of pain as 5 on a 0-10 scale.