ICNP® – why not? Nurses’ opinions on the implementation of ICNP® vocabulary for clinical practice

Introduction. The most important application of information technology in nursing is generating and maintaining patient’s electronic records. Implementing ICNP® to this can guarantee the continuity and high quality of evidence-based care. Aim. Obtaining information on nurses’ opinions on the implementation of ICNP® in clinical practice. Material and methods. The study was conducted in late 2018 and early 2019 in a group of 104 nurses of the University Clinical Centre in Gdańsk. It involved conducting a diagnostic survey. Results. Prior to the survey, 77.9% of the respondents were aware of ICNP®. The respondents who did not provide the correct answer to question about the essence of the ICNP® were mostly over 45 years of age. When it comes to 25% of subjects, they declared they were willing to use ICNP®. The vast majority considered it more convenient to maintain care records in the traditional way than with the use of ICNP®. The respondents with a master’s degree showed a higher level of acceptance for the implementation of the ICNP® to clinical practice than respondents with secondary and tertiary education. Conclusions. The nursing staff over 45 years old presented a lower level of knowledge related to the ICNP® as compared to other respondents. The reasons behind the conviction that applying ICNP® would be difficult included understaffing and lack of mobile devices such as tablets or laptops in hospital wards. It is, therefore, necessary to launch a nursing terminology training programme, equip branches with the necessary devices and comply with minimum employment standards.