Clinical Judgements & Decision-making: Nursing Diagnosis

Nursing diagnosis is a clinical judgement which describes how an individual or group of people respond to health problems or other health related experiences. It forms part of any assessment process and provides the basis for nursing, collaborative and/or client-led decisions for care. A medical diagnosis, by comparison, usually describes what the health problem is. Nursing diagnosis is recognised as an essential element of both first level and advanced practice roles, internationally.There are North American and European classifications of commonly used nursing diagnoses, although children and young people (CYP)-specific diagnoses have been less common until recently.