Patient centeredness in terminologies: Coverage of health assets concepts in the International Classification of Nursing Practice

Health assets has emerged as an important concept in health care, representing patients’ strengths and perspectives, but has not received much attention in structured vocabularies or classification systems of nursing care to date. The purpose of this study was to explore the representation of health assets concepts in the International Classification of Nursing Practice® (ICNP). Concepts from a conceptual model of health assets were cross-mapped to the ICNP terminology system version 2.0. Thirty-three of 76 health assets concepts/terms were represented in the ICNP. However, several health assets categories and subcategories were missing or embedded in the descriptors of other ICNP concepts/terms. A number of ICNP terms did not include positive statements consistent with the health assets approach, and many terms reflected the objectiveness of a clinician’s perspective rather than a patient’s strength perspective. ICNP would benefit from the inclusion of additional health assets concept to reflect and support patient-centered nursing care as well as the patient’s empowerment and self-management of health.