Evaluation of the content coverage of SNOMED-CT to represent ICNP Version 1 catalogues.

To evaluate the ability of SNOMED-CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms) to represent ICNP (International Classification for Nursing Practice) nursing diagnosis and intervention catalogue concepts. We selected the 194 nursing diagnosis and 139 nursing intervention catalogue statements from ICNP Version 1.0. From June 2007 through December 2007, the first author mapped the ICNP catalogue concepts to SNOMED-CT using Apelon's TermWorks and CLUE browser 5.0. The second and fourth authors from SNOMED Terminology Solutions and the third author from ICN validated the mapping result. SNOMED-CT covered 172 concepts of 194 nursing diagnosis and 136 concepts of 139 nursing intervention catalogue concepts. SNOMED-CT can represent most (92.5%) of the ICNP nursing diagnosis and intervention catalogue concepts. Improvements to synonymy and adding missing concepts would lead to greater coverage of nursing diagnosis and intervention catalogue concepts.