Background: The premise for the research study was the authors' conviction that the use of nursing diagnostic taxonomies allows the nurse to formulate a thorough and valid diagnosis.
Aim: To verify the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) in the context of a Polish academic nursing programme.
Research questions: Do nursing diagnoses made traditionally and those made with the ICNP reflect the patient's/client's condition? Is the range and type of the two kinds of diagnoses similar or different? Is the level of detail in both types of diagnoses compatible?
Methods: Quasi-experiment in which the experimental group diagnosed patients by means of the ICNP and the control group formulated nursing diagnoses by means of an intellectual decision-making process.
Study groups: 44 students in a MNurs. Programme, Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, Medical University in Lublin, Poland.
Conclusions: The range and type of nursing diagnoses do not depend on the method used in their formulation. The ICNP diagnoses are compatible with the traditionally formulated ones. The unbalanced size of the experimental and the study groups negatively influenced the validity of conclusions.