[Patient outcome--towards a definition and classification of nursing care outcome].

Within the context of the desired unambiguousness in definitions and classifications of the nursing terminology, this literature research attempts to inventory the divergent meanings in recent professional nursing literature of the concept 'patient outcome', as well as the classifications used. Data analysis and interpretation was carried out by means of analytic induction. The results clearly show the ambiguousness of the concept. Nursing literature appears to pay little attention to the study of the structure of (the) patient outcome(s). Then, the context in which the patient outcome has to be situated appears to be described in many divergent ways. Finally, classifications of patient outcomes are found in many variants. This report concludes with suggestions for an unequivocal definition of patient outcome, as well as for the construction of (a) classification(s) of patient outcomes.