CINAHL Subject Headings: Specialized Terms for Nursing Diagnoses and Classification Schemes

There are specialized subject headings in CINAHL for nursing diagnoses and classification schemes. These include NANDA Nursing Diagnoses, Iowa Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) terms, Iowa Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) terms, Saba's Home Health Care Classification (HHCC) terms, and Omaha System taxonomy. These terms may create confusion during a topic search when they appear on the “Mapping Display” screen. For example, if you are interested in literature that discusses how patients or families cope with illness and you search on the term “coping,” the search system will map you to numerous subject headings related to coping. A few of these are:

COPING - a subject heading used to describe the “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person.” This term and the narrower terms under it (such as “family coping”) would be appropriate for a search on the topic of coping.

COPING (IOWA NOC) – a heading for one of the Iowa Nursing Outcomes Classification terms. This heading is used for indexing materials that define or specifically concern the classification term itself or research about the term. Do not use this heading to retrieve articles about coping.

Defensive Coping (NANDA) – a heading for one of the nursing diagnoses from North American Nursing Diagnosis Association. This heading is used for indexing materials that define or specifically concern the nursing diagnosis term itself or research about the term. Do not use this heading to retrieve articles about coping.