Nursing Diagnoses for Coronavirus Disease, COVID-19: Identification by Taxonomic Triangulation

To identify the nursing care problems related to the clinical process of disease by COVID-19.

The study applied the taxonomic triangulation technique on a clinical management guide to coronavirus disease, COVID-19, from the World Health Organization. The technique is divided into the phases: extraction of knowledge in natural language about assessment, planning and intervention, translation into standard language NOC and NIC, linking to NANDA-I diagnoses, triangulation looking for diagnostic matches in the three sets, and, finally, validation by a panel of experts from a hospital and a university.

The extraction identified 159 terms in natural language that were translated into 173 variables: 34 NOC for assessment, 19 NOC for planning, and 120 NIC for intervention. The relationships to NANDA-I diagnoses recorded 2,182 links and the triangulation returned 109 diagnoses, 54 of them for a critical situation. The panel of experts unanimously validated the 29 diagnoses with the highest number of links.

Coronavirus disease, COVID-19, involves a complex situation with multiple associated care problems that can be identified using the taxonomic triangulation technique.

The links between taxonomies and the taxonomic triangulation technique are an important tool for generating knowledge. The results of this study may guide the diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus disease, COVID-19, as well as similar processes that occur with acute respiratory distress syndrome.