What do we do about symptoms?
As we continue to improve our nursing diagnosis labels, we would like your feedback on one area of our multi-axial structure.
Each of the seven axes is designed to be consistent with the International Standards Organization (ISO) and provides a structure for the label of each diagnosis. Currently, more than 30 diagnoses within the NANDA-I classification are actually symptoms, such as nausea, acute pain, chronic pain, and insomnia. Problematically, these appear as both nursing diagnosis labels and as diagnostic indicators (defining characteristics, related or risk factors.)
How should these be handled? Our Diagnosis Development Committee has set out to answer this question. Should we represent symptoms using the nursing label structure or do they even belong in a nursing diagnosis classification? Do we need a separate classification of symptoms?
Our Director of Diagnosis Development, Profa. Dra. Camila Takao Lopes, would like to know your thoughts. Please email her at diagnosis@nanda.org to provide your valued feedback.
