Noncompliance: an update

Health care providers have focused much attention on the area of patient compliance during recent decades. With the establishment of noncompliance as a nursing diagnosis, attention to this issue by nurses has continued and has included controversy. This study reported herein explored the use of noncompliance as a nursing diagnosis in clinical practice, the defining characteristics necessary for arriving at the diagnosis of noncompliance, and alternative diagnoses used if noncompliance is not used. A survey questionnaire was completed by 104 nurses who reside in Illinois and are members of the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA). Fifty-three of the respondents reported that they do not. Conclusions derived from the study include: (1) Questions continue to exist regarding the acceptability/utility of this diagnosis; (2) respondents generally indicated consensus with the NANDA listing of defining characteristics and etiologies but identified additional characteristics and etiologies.