North American Nursing Diagnosis Association International

In 1973, the first conference on nursing diagnosis was held to identify nursing knowledge and to establish a classification system suitable for computerization. From this conference developed the National Group for the Classification of Nursing Diagnosis, composed of nurses from different regions of the United States and Canada, representing all elements of the profession: practice, education, and research. From 1973 to the present, the National Group has met 15 times. Its most recent list of nursing diagnoses is presented at the end of Section One.

In 2003, the organization was renamed the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association International (NANDA). In addition to reviewing and accepting nursing diagnoses for addition to the list, NANDA also reviews previously accepted nursing diagnoses. For example, in 1994, NANDA revised ten previously accepted diagnoses.

In March 1990, the first issue of Nursing Diagnosis, NANDA’s official journal, was published. This journal aims to promote the development, refinement, and application of nursing diagnoses and to serve as a forum for issues pertaining to the development and classification of nursing knowledge. The journal is now named Nursing Diagnosis: The International Journal of Nursing Language and Classification.

At the International Council of Nursing (ICN) in Seoul in 1989, the Canadian and American Nurses Associations proposed a resolution to the Council of National Representatives. The resolution asked that “ICN encourage member nurses’ associations to become involved in developing classification systems for nursing care, nursing information management systems, and nursing data sets to provide tools that nurses in all countries could use to describe nursing and its contributions to health” (Clark & Lang,

Posted in: NANDA, NANDA Nursing Diagnosis, Nursing Diagnosis