A nursing diagnosis is a clinical judgment about how a patient, family or community responds to a health problem or life process, or how vulnerable they are to developing that response. Common nursing diagnoses in medical-surgical care plans include Acute pain, Risk for infection, Risk for adult falls, Impaired physical mobility, Ineffective airway clearance, Impaired gas exchange, Inadequate fluid volume, Excessive anxiety and Inadequate health knowledge. All of them come from the NANDA International (NANDA-I) classification, whose 2024–2026 edition contains 277 diagnoses grouped into 13 domains.
This guide explains the four types of nursing diagnosis and how the NANDA-I domains work. It then gives a list of commonly used diagnoses, grouped by domain, with plain-language meanings and typical examples. It also covers psychological nursing diagnoses and the label changes in the current edition.
The American Nurses Association places diagnosis second in the nursing process, after assessment, and describes it as the nurse's clinical judgment about the patient's response to actual or potential health conditions or needs. The diagnosis then guides everything else in the care plan: the outcomes you set, the interventions you choose and what you evaluate.
The key word is response. A medical diagnosis names a disease or injury. A nursing diagnosis names how the person is affected by it, in a way nurses can assess and treat on their own.
| Medical diagnosis | Possible nursing diagnoses |
|---|---|
| Pneumonia | Ineffective airway clearance; Impaired gas exchange; Decreased activity tolerance |
| Heart failure | Excessive fluid volume; Decreased activity tolerance; Ineffective health self-management |
| Stroke | Impaired swallowing; Impaired physical mobility; Impaired verbal communication |
| Hip fracture repair | Acute pain; Risk for adult falls; Risk for adult pressure injury |
Most nursing programs use NANDA for nursing diagnosis labels. The NANDA-I book gives each diagnosis a label, a definition and diagnostic indicators: defining characteristics (signs and symptoms), related factors (causes) or risk factors, and the at-risk populations and associated conditions that make a diagnosis more likely.
NANDA-I divides diagnoses into problem-focused diagnoses and two kinds of "potential" diagnosis, plus a smaller group of syndromes.
For a full guide to writing each type as a statement, see our guide to writing a nursing care plan, which covers the "related to" and "as evidenced by" format.
NANDA-I organizes its diagnoses into 13 domains, each divided into classes. The domains are broad areas of human functioning, and knowing them helps you scan for the right diagnosis once you've clustered your assessment data. Some placements surprise students. Ineffective airway clearance, for example, sits in Safety/protection rather than with the respiratory diagnoses in Elimination and exchange.
Use the tables below as a working nursing diagnosis list. NANDA-I 2024–2026 labels are used throughout. The meanings are short paraphrases to help you choose, not the official definitions, so always check the full definition and indicators in your NANDA-I book before you use a diagnosis. Every example describes a hypothetical patient.
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Ineffective health self-management | The patient isn't managing a condition and its treatment well enough to meet health goals | An adult with heart failure who often skips diuretics and finds the fluid plan hard to follow |
| Readiness for enhanced health self-management | The patient is managing a condition and wants to do it better | A patient with hypertension who asks how to log home blood pressure readings |
| Risk for ineffective blood glucose pattern self-management | The patient is vulnerable to not keeping blood glucose patterns in a healthy range | A newly diagnosed adult with type 2 diabetes who has started night shifts |
For diabetes-specific diagnoses and outcomes, see our guide to nursing diagnoses for type 2 diabetes.
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Inadequate nutritional intake | Eating or drinking less than the body needs | An older adult who eats less than half of each meal and is losing weight |
| Impaired swallowing | Difficulty moving food or fluid safely from the mouth to the stomach | A patient after a stroke who coughs when drinking thin liquids |
| Inadequate fluid volume | Too little fluid in the body | A patient with two days of vomiting, dry mucous membranes and low urine output |
| Excessive fluid volume | Too much fluid retained in the body | A patient with heart failure with leg edema, crackles and rapid weight gain |
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Impaired urinary elimination | A problem with how urine is passed, such as urgency, frequency or difficulty emptying the bladder | A patient who voids small amounts often after catheter removal |
| Impaired intestinal elimination | A problem with bowel movements, such as hard, infrequent stools or loose, frequent ones | A patient taking opioids after surgery with no bowel movement for four days and a bloated abdomen |
| Impaired gas exchange | Oxygen and carbon dioxide aren't exchanged well enough in the lungs | A patient with pneumonia who has new confusion and low oxygen saturation |
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Impaired physical mobility | Limited ability to move the body or limbs independently | A patient after hip surgery who needs help to turn and stand |
| Decreased activity tolerance | Not enough physical or mental energy to complete daily activities | A patient with COPD who becomes breathless walking to the bathroom |
| Excessive fatigue burden | Persistent, overwhelming tiredness that rest doesn't fix and that limits function | A patient having chemotherapy who can't finish usual tasks despite sleeping more |
| Ineffective breathing pattern | The way the patient breathes doesn't move enough air | A patient with rib fractures taking rapid, shallow breaths to avoid pain |
| Risk for decreased cardiac output | Vulnerable to the heart not pumping enough blood for the body's needs | A patient admitted after a heart attack |
| Ineffective sleep pattern | Sleep quantity or quality is disrupted | A hospitalized patient woken repeatedly overnight who reports feeling unrested |
| Decreased bathing abilities | Unable to complete bathing without help | A patient with one-sided weakness after a stroke |
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Acute confusion | A sudden, fluctuating change in attention, thinking or awareness | An older adult after surgery who becomes disoriented and agitated at night |
| Inadequate health knowledge | Missing information needed to manage health | A patient starting warfarin who doesn't know which signs of bleeding to report |
| Impaired verbal communication | Difficulty using or understanding spoken language | A patient with expressive aphasia after a stroke |
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Risk for infection | More vulnerable than usual to invasion by pathogens | A patient with a central line who is receiving chemotherapy |
| Ineffective airway clearance | Unable to clear secretions or obstructions to keep the airway open | A patient with pneumonia, a weak cough and coarse crackles |
| Risk for aspiration | Vulnerable to food, fluid or secretions entering the airway | A patient receiving tube feedings who is drowsy |
| Risk for adult falls | An adult more likely than usual to fall | A patient who gets dizzy on standing and has a new walker |
| Impaired skin integrity | Damage to the outer layers of the skin | A frail patient with a skin tear on the forearm |
| Risk for adult pressure injury | Vulnerable to skin and tissue damage from pressure or shear | A bedbound patient with a high-risk pressure injury screening score |
| Risk for excessive bleeding | Vulnerable to losing more blood than normal | A patient on an anticoagulant after surgery |
| Hyperthermia | Body temperature above normal because the body can't regulate heat | A worker brought in after collapsing on a very hot day |
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Acute pain | Pain of recent onset that is expected to resolve, lasting less than three months | A patient on day one after abdominal surgery who rates incision pain 8/10 |
| Chronic pain | Pain that has lasted longer than three months | A patient with low back pain for more than a year that limits work |
A psychological nursing diagnosis describes an emotional, mental or social response. Most sit in the Coping/stress tolerance, Self-perception and Role relationship domains, and the 2024–2026 edition renamed many of them.
| Diagnosis | What it means | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Excessive anxiety | Worry or dread about a vague or expected threat that is strong enough to interfere with functioning | A patient the night before surgery who is restless, can't concentrate and keeps asking the same questions |
| Excessive fear | A strong response to a specific, identified threat | A patient terrified of an upcoming MRI after a bad experience in a confined space |
| Maladaptive coping | Ways of handling stress that don't work or cause harm | A patient who started drinking heavily and missing appointments after a new diagnosis |
| Impaired mood regulation | Mood changes that affect thinking, behavior and physical well-being | A patient with depression who reports persistent low mood, poor sleep and withdrawal from family |
| Risk for suicidal self-injurious behavior | Vulnerable to self-harm with the intent to die | A patient who has expressed hopelessness after a major loss and has stored medications at home |
| Situational inadequate self-esteem | A negative view of oneself that develops in response to a current situation | A patient who calls himself "useless" after an injury forced him to stop working |
| Disrupted body image | Distress about how the body looks or works | A patient who won't look at a new colostomy |
| Maladaptive grieving | Grief that is prolonged or interferes with daily life | A widowed patient who still cannot manage daily routines long after the loss |
| Excessive caregiving burden | Overwhelming strain from caring for someone else | A spouse caring for a partner with dementia who reports exhaustion and no support |
| Inadequate social connectedness | Lacking meaningful contact with other people | An older adult living alone who rarely sees or speaks to anyone |
| Impaired spiritual well-being | Distress about meaning, purpose or faith | A patient with advanced cancer who is questioning the meaning of their life |
Risk for suicidal self-injurious behavior is a safety priority, not a paperwork exercise. Report concerns to the patient's nurse and your instructor at once, follow your unit's observation and environmental safety policies, and use the screening tool your facility has adopted, such as the NIMH Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) toolkit. If you or someone you know is in crisis in the United States, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
According to the preface of the 2024–2026 edition, every diagnosis was revised in some way, 56 new diagnoses were added, and several labels changed. If you're using an older textbook, this table shows the current label for diagnoses you may know by an older name.
| Older label | Current label |
|---|---|
| Anxiety | Excessive anxiety |
| Fear | Excessive fear |
| Deficient knowledge | Inadequate health knowledge |
| Deficient fluid volume | Inadequate fluid volume |
| Fatigue | Excessive fatigue burden |
| Imbalanced nutrition: less than body requirements | Inadequate nutritional intake |
| Bathing self-care deficit | Decreased bathing abilities |
| Ineffective coping | Maladaptive coping |
| Caregiver role strain | Excessive caregiving burden |
| Social isolation | Inadequate social connectedness |
| Situational low self-esteem | Situational inadequate self-esteem |
| Disturbed body image | Disrupted body image |
| Spiritual distress | Impaired spiritual well-being |
| Risk for suicidal behavior | Risk for suicidal self-injurious behavior |
| Risk for bleeding | Risk for excessive bleeding |
| Risk for injury | Risk for physical injury |
| Hypothermia | Decreased body temperature |
| Risk for surgical site infection | Risk for surgical wound infection |
Two familiar changes came one edition earlier, in 2021–2023: Activity intolerance became Decreased activity tolerance, and Risk for falls was split into Risk for adult falls and Risk for child falls. Some labels were removed rather than renamed, including Constipation, Diarrhea, Decreased cardiac output, Disturbed sleep pattern, Insomnia, Urinary retention, Hopelessness, Powerlessness and Impaired comfort. The current list covers those problems with labels such as Impaired intestinal elimination, Chronic functional constipation, Risk for decreased cardiac output, Ineffective sleep pattern and Impaired urinary elimination. If your program still uses an older edition, follow your syllabus.
Many diagnoses sound alike. Start from your clustered assessment data, then compare the definitions of the candidates. These are the pairs students mix up most often:
Then prioritize. NANDA-I puts physiological instability first. It also points out that a risk diagnosis can outrank a problem-focused one, for example when a patient's risk of pressure injury is high. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing's Clinical Judgment Measurement Model tests the same skills on the NCLEX: recognizing cues, analyzing them and prioritizing hypotheses.
The complete classification, with all definitions and indicators, is in the NANDA-I book. Your school library may provide it. Free online lists vary in quality, and many still show retired labels, so check any list against the edition your program uses. The Open RN Nursing Fundamentals textbook has a free chapter on nursing diagnosis that explains how to cluster data and choose diagnoses, though its examples are based on an earlier NANDA-I edition. More study guides are collected in our Nursing Study Hub.
Choosing a diagnosis that matches your data, and using the current label, is where many care plans lose points. If you'd like feedback on your diagnoses, priorities or care plan, our nursing homework help offers tutoring and review for nursing assignments. Use any outside help in line with your school's academic integrity policy, and base your diagnoses on your own patient assessment.
Diagnoses that appear often in medical-surgical care plans include Acute pain, Risk for infection, Risk for adult falls, Impaired physical mobility, Ineffective airway clearance, Impaired gas exchange, Inadequate fluid volume, Excessive anxiety, Inadequate health knowledge and Impaired skin integrity.
The 2024–2026 edition contains 277 diagnoses, including 56 that are new to this edition, organized into 13 domains.
Problem-focused, risk, health promotion and syndrome. Problem-focused diagnoses describe a current problem, risk diagnoses a vulnerability, health promotion diagnoses a readiness to improve, and syndromes a cluster of related diagnoses.
A medical diagnosis names a disease, such as pneumonia. A nursing diagnosis names the patient's response to it, such as Ineffective airway clearance, which nurses can treat independently.
Yes, but the current label is Excessive anxiety. Fear was similarly renamed Excessive fear in the 2024–2026 edition.
Follow your instructor's guidance. Many programs expect the current edition, so use the 2024–2026 label and mention the older one if it helps your reader.
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