Crisis: what it is and is not

Crisis is one example of a concept widely used and misused in the vocabulary of the nursing professional. The technique of concept analysis was used to develop four criteria for the diagnosis of a client as having attributes congruent with the concept of crisis and to differentiate crisis from related concepts, eg, stress and emergency. Variations of a model case were developed to illustrate what crisis is and what it is not. Antecedents, consequents, and empirical referents for crisis are also identified.