About NIC

Overview of the Nursing Interventions Classification

The Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) is a comprehensive standardized classification of interventions that nurses perform. It is useful for clinical documentation, communication of care across settings, integration of data across systems and settings, effectiveness research, productivity measurement, competency evaluation, reimbursement, and curricular design. The Classification includes the interventions that nurses do on behalf of patients, both independent and collaborative interventions, both direct and indirect care. An interaention is defined as any treatment, based upon clinical judgment and knowledge, that a nurse performs to enhance patient/client outcomes. Although an individual nurse will have expertise in only a limited number of interventions reflecting her or his specialty, the entire classification captures the expertise of all nurses. NIC can be used in all settings (from acute-care intensive care units, to home care,to hospice care, to primary care) and all specialties (from critical care to ambulatory care and long-term care). The entire Classification describes the domain of nursing; however, some of the interventions in the classification are also done by other providers. Other health care providers are welcome to use NIC to describe their treatments.

NIC interventions include both the physiological (e.9., Acid-Base Management) and the psychosocial (e.g., Anxiety Reduction). Interventions are included for illness treatment (e.g.,Hyperglycemia Management), illness prevention (e.9., Fall Prevention), and health promotion (e.g., Exercise Promotion). Most of the interventions are for use with individuals, but many are for use with families (e.g., Family Integrity Promotion) and some for use with entire communities (e.g., Environmental Management: Community). Indirect care interventions (e.9., Supply Management) are also included. Each intervention as it appears in the Classification is listed with a label name, a definition, a set of activities to carry out the intervention, and background readings

There are 542 Interventions and more than 12,000 Activities. The portions ofthe intervention that are standardized are the intervention labels and the definitions-these should not be changed when they are used. This allows for communication across settings and comparison of outcomes. Care can be individualized, however, through the activities. From a list of approximately 10 to 30 activities per intervention, the provider selects the activities that are appropriate for the specific individual or family and then can add new activities if desired. All modifications or additions to activities should be congruent with the definition of the intervention. For each intervention, the activities are listed in logical order, from what a nurse would do first to what he or she would do last. For many activities the placement is not crucial, but for others, the time sequence is important.

Use of NIC

"A nursing intervention is any treatment based upon clinical judgement and knowledge that a nurse performs to enhance patient/client outcomes. The Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) should be used to communicate the interventions that nurses use with patients, families, communities, or health systems. When NIC is used to document practice, then we have the beginning of a mechanism to determine the impact of nursing care on patient outcomes."

When selecting an intervention 6 factors should be considered:

1. The desired patient outcome
2. Characteristics of the Nursing Diagnosis
3. Research Base for the Intervention
4. Feasibility for Performing the Intervention
5. Acceptability to the Patient
6. Compatibility of the nurse

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