Nursing Diagnosis are standard statements of the health of individuals, families and communities. NANDA-International formerly known as the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association defines and develops standard nursing diagnoses with their health assessments.
Nursing has some emerging movements that want to standardize their terminology. Nursing diagnoses are part of these movements.
NANDA has a system that established five types of nursing diagnoses: actual diagnosis, risk diagnosis, possible diagnosis, syndrome diagnosis and wellness diagnosis.
Actual diagnoses are statements of health problems that patients suffer. These statements imply that the patient needs nursing care.
Risk diagnosis prevents patients from suffering the development of health problems. These diagnoses predict higher than normal risks of developing certain conditions.
Possible diagnoses are used when nurses do not have enough information to make a diagnosis about a possible health problem that the patient might have.
When there is a group of nursing diagnoses, these are considered as a syndrome diagnosis.
Wellness diagnoses are used when the patient has an aspect of his health that has high levels of wellness.
NANDA-International approved that nursing diagnoses were divided in functional health patterns like: Health Perception-Health Management, Nutritional-Metabolic, Elimination, Activity-Exercise, Sleep Rest, Cognitive-Perceptual, Self-Perception, Role-Relationship, Sexuality-Reproductive, Coping-Stress Tolerance and Value-Belief which includes Spiritual Distress and Spiritual Well-Being.
Nursing diagnosis incorporates an amount of knowledge that is exclusive of nursing while playing a significant part in planning patient care and differentiating nursing from medicine.