Diagnosing

Diagnosing is the second phase of the nursing process and the fourth stage of the clinical reasoning cycle. Nurses use critical-thinking skills to process the clinical data they collect in order to identify the person's problem/s and formulate specific, clear and individualised nursing diagnoses. At all times the nurse adopts a person-centred approach and works in partnership with the person who is experiencing ill health; this ensures that the person's goals and needs remain central to the nursing process. Diagnosing is a pivotal step as care planning and nursing interventions follow directly from this phase. Safe and effective health care depends upon an accurate nursing diagnoses.3rd Australian ed