Participation in the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) programme.

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of 129 national nurses associations. The International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) is a programme of the ICN. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and maintenance processes of the ICNP Programme that are used to increase participation. These include processes by which the ICNP was and continues to be developed, tested, distributed and implemented worldwide, with emphasis on the current version, ICNP Version 1.0. The ICNP is a unified nursing language that facilitates cross-mapping among local terms and existing terminologies. ICNP conforms to current terminology standards and criteria, for example, ISO standards and HL7. The ICNP Alpha and Beta Versions documented the progress of concept validation and classification of nursing phenomena and interventions. The ICNP Beta 2 Version was a combinatorial terminology organized in two multi-axial structures representing nursing phenomena and nursing actions. The ICNP Version 1.0, launched in 2005, changed the relatively straight-forward multi-axial structure into a compositional terminology through the application of description logics using Web Ontology Language (OWL) within Protégé, an ontology development environment. ICNP Version 1.0 is also represented in a multiaxial model (7-Axis) for nurses to compose nursing diagnosis, intervention and outcome statements. Language translations and clinical information systems applications are required to make the ICNP Version 1.0 available to nurses at the point of healthcare delivery. ICNP data collected in healthcare environments provide standardized terminology for nursing that allows comparison of nursing practice across health care settings, specialties and countries; facilitate data-based clinical and management decision making; and contribute to the development of guidelines and standards for best practices and optimal outcomes for patients, families and communities.