Frequently selected nursing diagnoses for the rehabilitation client with stroke

From 2 million to 3 million people in the United States live with the aftereffects of stroke. Nursing diagnoses provide a taxonomy that enables nurses to identify similarities and differences for given groups of clients. The purposes of this study were to identify the most frequently chosen nursing diagnoses for rehabilitation stroke clients and to determine the corresponding objective clinical characteristics (related factors) of these diagnoses. A retrospective descriptive design was used to study charts from randomly selected stroke clients (N = 100) at a large rehabilitation center. At admission and at discharge, impaired physical mobility (99%) and self-care deficit (91%) were the most frequently occurring diagnoses. Impaired physical mobility was usually related to neuromuscular impairment, and self-care deficit was usually related to neuromuscular dysfunction. These objective clinical characteristics help to determine how diagnoses are unique to rehabilitation nursing practice.