Structure and content in Norwegian nursing care documentation

In 1994, the Norwegian Board of Health (NBH) published recommendations for nursing care documentation. The two-fold purpose of the present study was to see if 5 wards in 2 Norwegian hospitals fulfilled the proposed NBH recommendations and guidelines regarding documentation, and to evaluate them in terms of the proposed structure and key words of the VIPS model. Results showed that all nursing records (n = 55) had an admission assessment. A nursing care plan was present in 62% of the records. Nursing goals were lacking in the remaining 38%, diagnosis and planned interventions were absent in 18%, and 45% of the diagnoses lacked information concerning patient progress or outcome. The nursing care plans were updated in only 40% of the records and discharge notes were present in 35%, confirming that NBH recommendations were not met in this sample. The key words of the VIPS model covered all information present in the records, and high interrater reliability was obtained for the majority of key words categorized by two independent researchers. It is suggested that the VIPS model components and key words can contribute to a reliable and uniform model for nursing care documentation and enhance comprehensive and systematic documentation, which is presently lacking in Norwegian records.