Background: The nursing process, a fundamental framework in healthcare, involves assessment, diagnosis, intervention planning, and evaluation. Standardizing nursing terminologies enhances accuracy and consistency in documentation. This study aimed to create a subset of Nanda nursing diagnoses focusing on Gordon's Functional health patterns in the Italian Intensive care unit (Icu) context.
Method: A two-round Delphi survey involved 14 critical care nursing experts.
Results: The panel reached consensus on 21 diagnoses out of 78 selected, emphasizing safety-related concerns like infection risk, impaired tissue integrity, and ineffective airway clearance. The subset primarily prioritized physiological issues over emotional or spiritual needs.
Conclusions: The study underscores the importance of tailored nursing care through focused diagnosis subsets and highlights the challenges in considering holistic patient needs in critical care settings. Establishing a subset of diagnoses offers a targeted approach for nursing care, fostering consistency and efficiency while suggesting the need for shared subsets to comprehensively map prevalent health issues and their interactions.