NANDA? I don’t know her.

I’ll never forget finding out what a nursing diagnosis was for the first time, and feeling so frustrated. Who cares about NANDA, and why don’t we just use whatever their medical diagnosis is to guide our care plans? After a lot of kvetching and moaning about having to use my brain for five seconds, I finally caught on.

“OH. The nursing diagnosis guides my nursing considerations and my nursing implementations and my nursing priorities, and makes my job as a nurse a whole lot easier.” Who’da thunk? (Other than NANDA International, all my nursing professors, and probably a million nurses nationwide—please forgive me, I’m sorry for ever doubting you!!!)

Once I figured out the point of a nursing diagnosis, it really helped make my care plans and assignments that much easier. Sure, my dehydrated patient and my patient with hyperemesis gravidarum have unique considerations, but if I consider their fluid volume deficit, I can quickly brainstorm a myriad of ways to intervene.

That’s all well and good, but you’ve still got to be able to actually write that diagnosis, at least for the purposes of nursing school. And, interestingly enough, this is where a lot of students seem to struggle. It’s much simpler than it looks, but it does take a little bit of fine-tuning.

So, I’m here to finely tune your ability to write a nursing diagnosis.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a visual learner, so I like to make things that are clear and easy to follow…like a flowchart! Yes, I’m back at it again with the colorful flowcharts!

If you’d like to download a high quality PDF of my flowchart, you can do so by clicking here. Perfect for printing and sticking in your NANDA handbook for easy reference.

What’s that? You don’t have a NANDA handbook?

I put the name of the NANDA handbook I most prefer there on the flowchart itself, but you can get any NANDA handbook your heart desires. I highly, highly, highly recommend getting one, especially when you’re just starting out. The handbook will help you understand what your NANDA options are, what the “related to” factors might be, and even some goals you could consider or nursing interventions that may be appropriate. It will basically hold your hand every step of the way as you write a care plan, which is all a nursing student really wants, right? There are also plenty of other great resources available online, but I’m a fan of a good ol’ fashioned flip through a physical reference book.

If you like the resources I make, I’d love for you to share my blog with your classmates and friends, and it would make my day if you’d comment below to tell me if you’d like to see more things like this!

I just want to take a minute to plug my mentorship program, where I help you understand content like this, tutor you one-on-one in your nursing courses, help you master time management, become a more efficient studier, and tackle NCLEX style tests like the pro you are! For more information, head over here!

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Don’t forget to take your meds and stay hydrated!