The prevalence of perioperative nurse clinical judgments.

A clinical judgement about a patient situation precedes the selection of appropriate nursing actions and the identification of patient outcomes. The North American Nursing Diagnosis Association nomenclature (i.e., nursing diagnoses) is the accepted language for naming nurse's clinical judgements. Two hundred thirty-nine members of the Association of Operating Room Nurses, Inc, rated the frequency and treatment priority of 60 nursing diagnoses. They rated two diagnostic labels (i.e., risk for perioperative positioning injury, risk for infections occurring in more than 50% of the clinical judgments they make about perioperative patient situations that require immediate nursing action. These data reinforce perioperative nurses' primary role in protecting surgical patients from harm.