Diagnosis Development

Submit a Diagnosis

Click below to fill out and submit one of the four Diagnosis forms. Within each form, you will be able to specify whether your submission is for a new diagnosis or a revision to a current diagnosis.

Diagnosis Development Committee and Task Force(s):

Formulates and conducts review processes of proposed new and revised diagnoses. There will be one standing committee, and multiple task forces. The duties of the standing committee include, but are not limited to:

  • identifying areas of focus for diagnostic development/revision
  • reviewing newly proposed, proposed revisions, or proposed deletions of nursing diagnoses
  • soliciting and disseminating feedback from experts
  • implementing processes to receive and incorporate important feedback from the membership
  • implementing standards for approval/requests for revision/rejection of diagnoses
  • presenting approved/revised/rejected/retired diagnoses to the Board and membership of the Association
  • slotting diagnoses within the taxonomy upon acceptance into the terminology.

Task forces will be specific to strategic plan items assigned to the Director of Diagnosis Development, and may include groups focused on domain-specific content areas, review of oldest diagnoses in the terminology, etc.

Strategic Plan Responsibilities

Enhance knowledge development

  • DDC needs to apply to the board with the detailed plan and the request for the financial resources needed.
  • DDC will develop a plan to identify and prioritize diagnoses for revision and the resources needed; particularly those on “fast track” (with graduate students or experts delivering the work on a paid basis) as well core / key diagnoses.

Promote Dissemination of knowledge

  • Identify a plan for educational offerings including basic and advanced level clinical courses (online); faculty education (online and / or blended learning); diagnosis development and refinement education (maybe via summer schools / writing workshops) with the Chair of Diagnosis Development and the Chief Executive Officer.

Procedure to Appeal a DDC Decision on Diagnosis Review

If a new or revised diagnosis is reviewed by the DDC and returned to the submitter(s) either for revision or because it is judged not to meet one or more criteria for staging a diagnosis, the submitter(s) may appeal the decision.

If the DDC chooses not to accept a new or revised diagnosis, notification of the lack of approval will be given to the submitter(s) with a detailed rationale. One or more of the following reasons will be explained:

  1. Reject diagnosis (e.g., does not meet criteria for the definition of a nursing diag­nosis, or does not meet level of evidence criteria).
  2. Return - requires substantial revision (e.g., need to make major content changes).
  3. Insufficient/old literature support (e.g., failure to reference meta-analyses, concept papers, or current research, or lack of research articles with reliance on textbooks only).
  4. Return with editorial changes (e.g., solicit submitter response to DDC rationale and/or revision to submission).

If the submitter(s) choose(s) to appeal the DDC decision, the appeal will be presented to the full Board of Directors along with the rationale from the DDC for its rejection of the diagnosis. Neither the DDC Chair nor any member of the DDC will be able to vote on the decision of the Board of Directors.

Within 30 days of appeal, the DDC will review feedback from the Board of Directors, and submit a second decision to the submitter(s). This feedback will be presented to the submitter regardless of the outcome. A decision by the Board of Directors to modify or reject the DDC's recommendation must be evidence-based and at the same level of evidence as or higher than the evidence presented by the submitter(s) and/or by the DDC.