Defining and validating nursing interventions.

A research team at the University of Iowa has been working for 5 years to develop a classification of nursing interventions. Conceptual work to clarify the nature of a nursing intervention was needed. An inductive approach was taken to group discrete nursing activities and attach a conceptual label. Fehring's methodology was adapted for soliciting input from nurse experts for the 134 labels described in this issue. These labels are a part of the standardized language in the Iowa classification.