To provide quality patient care over a period of time, nurses need a roadmap that guides their actions and quantifies desired outcomes. As a registered nurse, you will be responsible for creating a plan of care based on each patient’s needs and health goals.
What is a nursing care plan? It’s a formal process that includes six components: assessment, diagnosis, expected outcomes, interventions, rationale and evaluation.1 Documenting these steps ensures effective communication between doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals over multiple shifts.
Interventions are a key element of the nursing care plan. Let’s explore nursing interventions and their role in patient care.
What Are Nursing Interventions?
The definition of nursing interventions is “actions for which nurses are responsible that are intended to benefit a patient or client,” including treatments, procedures or teaching moments aimed to improve the patient’s comfort and health.2
These actions can be as simple as adjusting the patient’s bed and resting position—or as involved as psychotherapy and crisis counseling. While some nursing interventions are doctors’ orders, nurse practitioners can also develop orders using principles of evidence-based practice. Common nursing interventions include:
- Bedside care and assistance
- Administration of medication
- Postpartum support
- Feeding assistance
- Monitoring of vitals and recovery progress
Nursing Intervention Categories
Interventions in nursing fall within three categories, according to the role of the healthcare professional involved in the patient’s care:3
- Independent: A nurse can perform independent interventions without assistance from other medical personnel, e.g., routine nursing tasks such as checking vital signs.
- Dependent: Some actions require instructions or input from a doctor, such as prescribing new medication. A nurse cannot initiate dependent interventions alone.
- Interdependent: Collaborative, also known as interdependent, interventions involve team members across disciplines. In some cases, such as post-surgery, the patient’s recovery plan may require a prescription medication from a doctor, feeding assistance from a nurse and treatment by a physical therapist (PT) or occupational therapist (OT).
The Role of Assessments
The nursing assessment is the first step in the nursing care plan. During the assessment process, physicians and nurses might ask questions and perform tests to gain information about a patient’s health and state of being. Professionals gather information from the patient’s:
- Vital signs
- Physical complaints or concerns
- External body conditions
- Medical history
- Current neurological functioning
After gathering all essential information during the assessment process, the nurse can use clinical judgment to formulate a nursing diagnosis list. Based on the assessment and diagnosis, the nurse develops a care plan that outlines which nursing interventions to include, goals and potential outcomes.4
For example, the nursing diagnosis list may conclude the patient’s lack of appetite is due to post-surgery pain. From this medical diagnosis, the nurse can set goals to resolve the patient’s pain by administering pain-relief medication and assessing the patient’s pain levels every few hours.
Nursing Interventions Classification System
There are several types of nursing interventions aimed at meeting the various patient medical needs and conditions. The Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) system categorizes a wide range of possible treatments that a nurse may perform. The book Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC), 8th ed., evaluates this system, defining several nursing interventions from which a nurse can choose.5
NIC categorizes a list of nursing interventions across seven domains:5
1. Family Nursing Interventions
Family nursing interventions are collaborative, family-centered approaches that may address other family members and the patient.6 Examples of nursing interventions in this category could include education of family members about caring for the patient; or, in the case of new mothers, assistance with breastfeeding and other forms of infant care.6
2. Behavioral Nursing Interventions
This category includes actions a nurse takes to help their patient change an unhealthy behavior or habit.7 Some nursing intervention examples might include suggesting physical and emotional coping methods for a patient who wants to quit smoking.7
3. Physiological Nursing Interventions (Basic)
Basic nursing interventions concerning the patient’s physical health include hands-on procedures ranging from feeding to hygiene assistance.7
4. Physiological Nursing Interventions (Complex)
Some physiological nursing interventions are more complex, such as the insertion of an IV line to administer fluids to a dehydrated patient.7
5. Community Nursing Interventions
Some hospitals and clinics focus on public health initiatives to educate patients, their families and local communities.7 These community nursing interventions are organized efforts that encourage general health and wellness.
For example, many clinics and pharmacies administer vaccines for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, or a hospital may offer a free education program about diabetes or organize a fun run to raise money for breast cancer research.7
6. Safety Nursing Interventions
After undergoing surgery, patients need education on safety procedures and protocols to prevent injury.7 Examples of nursing interventions in this category may include instructions for using a walker or a cane or how to take a shower safely.7
7. Health System Nursing Interventions
During their shift, nurses take the initiative to ensure the patient’s environment is safe and comfortable, such as repositioning them to avoid pressure ulcers in bed.7 These routine procedures are classified as health system interventions.7
While a nurse may not use each nursing intervention daily, each is an essential form of care needed to maintain the patient’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being and achieve the desired outcome.
Key Nursing Interventions to Perform Each Shift
On-duty nurses routinely perform specific nursing interventions as part of their daily tasks. In addition to educating the patient on their care and recovery progression, nurses will typically perform the following each shift:8
- Pain control: Ensuring the patient is comfortable and monitoring their intake of pain medication, as applicable
- Position changes: Promoting a change of the patient’s resting position to prevent bed sores
- Active listening: Listening to the patient and repeating back information so they feel heard
- Cluster care: Informing other nurses and care team members of the patient’s needs each shift to help consolidate trips and avoid frequent traffic in the patient’s room
- Fall prevention: Educating the patient, generally someone who is elderly or recovering post-surgery, with instructions to avoid the risk of falls and injury
- Adequate oral intake: Promoting fluid consumption by mouth for patients currently receiving fluid through IVs as a means to decrease and discontinue IV use
Creating a safe environment, promoting good health practices and listening closely to patients are daily nursing interventions you will perform and perfect throughout your nursing career. If you aspire to a nursing leadership role, such as a nurse practitioner, nurse manager or nurse executive, you may oversee and develop care plans for hundreds of patients. With an advanced career in nursing, you can lead initiatives to improve the quality of care and make lasting, positive impacts on patient lives.
The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences (USAHS) offers a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), and Post-Graduate Nursing Certificates designed for working nurses. Our degrees are offered online, with optional on-campus immersions.* Role specialties include Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP), Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP), and Nurse Executive. The MSN and DNP have options to accelerate your time to degree completion, allowing you to complete coursework in your own time and earn your advanced nursing degree while keeping your work and life in balance.
*The FNP role specialty includes one required hands-on clinical intensive as part of the curriculum.
Sources
- Helen Ballantyne, “Developing nursing care plans,” Nursing Standard, February 24, 2016, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26907149/.
- Medical Dictionary, “Nursing Intervention,” The Free Dictionary by Farlex, 2024, https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/nursing+intervention.
- RN Speak, “Nursing Interventions – The Core of Nursing Process,” RN Speak, July 20, 2024, https://rnspeak.com/nursing-interventions/.
- Tammy J. Toney- Butler and Wendy J. Unison-Pace, “Nursing Admission Assessment and Examination,” StatPearls, August 28, 2023, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493211/.
- University of Iowa, College of Nursing, Center for Nursing Classification and Clinical Effectiveness, “NIC Overview ,” 2024, https://nursing.uiowa.edu/cncce/nursing-interventions-classification-overview .
- Rosemary W. Eustace, Bobbe Gray, et al., “The Meaning of Family Nursing Intervention: What Do Acute Nurses Think?,” Research and Theory for Nursing Practice, January 2015, https://doi.org/10.1891/1541-6577.29.2.125.
- Amanda Thomas, “Nursing Interventions: Implementing Effective Client Care Plans,” SimpleNursing, August 19, 2024, https://simplenursing.com/what-are-nursing-interventions/#toc3.
- In Home Care, “Nursing Interventions for Home Care,” In Home Care, December 26, 2019, https://www.inhomecare.com/what-is-nursing-intervention-guide-to-nurse-interventions/.
