Determining awareness of and readiness for standardized nursing languages in a mid-level midwestern hospital and associated school of nursing.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine knowledge, attitude, and barriers toward care planning documentation practices with standardized nursing languages (SNLs) of nurses and nursing students at a midwestern healthcare system, comparing student and nurse responses.

Methods: Cross-sectional surveys were given over a 2-month period with nurses and nursing students at different sites in a midwestern healthcare system, using convenience sampling. The Knowledge, Attitude, and Barriers to Using Standardized Nursing Languages and Current Practices Survey was adapted for use and re-tested for validity/reliability (Content Validity Index 0.81-1.00; Cronbach alpha = 0.82-0.99) with 28 Likert scale items measuring knowledge, attitude, and barriers. Descriptive statistics, composite scores, correlations, t-tests, and multiple regression were used to analyze the concepts of the tool.

Findings: 134/400 RNs responded (34%); 109/116 students responded (93.9%). Data analyses indicate adequate to superior levels of knowledge related to SNLs and NANDA International, Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC), and Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC), collectively referred to as NNN (NANDA, NIC, & NOC), positive attitudes toward SNLs/NNN and for adopting SNLs/NNN into documentation practices, but moderate to great barriers for implementation in practice. Barriers included lack of financial resources for change, lack of mentors, and lack of mandates to use SNLs. Students scored significantly higher than nurses in attitude only.

Conclusions: Perceptions of nurses and student nurses for current documentation indicate awareness of inadequacy in existing systems and willingness to change existing systems for standardized languages, with perceived barriers to change/implementation of SNLs. Students were more positive about SNLs than nurses.

Implications for nursing practice: Major implications for nursing are to reevaluate electronic documentation systems and determine how to insert and easily apply SNLs in these systems, such that nursing care documentation is standardized, interoperable, effective, time-saving, and attainable.