[Patient classification systems. Nursing workload from the perspective of applied research (part I)]

This article describes in two parts the basic principles of categorising nursing data into Patient Classification Systems (PCS) and related findings of nursing research. PCS are used to group patients into classes by using some specified criteria or indicators, e.g. needs of a patient, functional status or different nursing activities. They are often applied to constitute staff requirements. Since the large number of available classification systems differs in terms of development procedures and use of resulting data, it was rarely possible to compare different PCS with each other until now. Therefore a typology of PCS was developed, which is presented in the first part of this article. While assigning current PCS to adequate classes of the typology, the development and complexity of different PCS can be evaluated and discussed. Thus using the typology allows to identify advantages and limitations of individual classification systems. Conclusions can be drawn about requirements for further PCS development.