22/04/2026
The development of standardized nursing diagnoses didn’t happen overnight. It emerged through decades of scholarly collaboration aimed at defining the clinical judgments that guide nursing care.
In 1973, nurse scholars Drs. Kristine Gebbie and Mary Ann Lavin convened the First National Conference on the Classification of Nursing Diagnoses in St. Louis. That meeting brought nurses together to begin the systematic work of identifying and classifying the patient responses addressed through nursing care.
This work led to the establishment of NANDA® (North American Nursing Diagnosis Association) in 1982, now known as NANDA International, Inc. Since then, NANDA-I has continued the development, refinement, and classification of nursing diagnoses used across education, practice, and research worldwide.
As this work continues to evolve, NANDA International will transition to the International Nursing Knowledge Association (INKA), reflecting an expanded focus on the development of nursing knowledge.
The NANDA Archive preserves the documents that trace this history, from early conference proceedings to materials that show how nursing diagnoses evolved into a structured knowledge system.
Understanding this history highlights an important reality: the language of nursing diagnoses was built through sustained scholarly effort.
Learn more: https://nanda.org/2026/01/boston-nanda-archives/ Archive catalog: https://bc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=01BC_INST:bclib&tab=LibraryCatalog&docid=alma99112093990001021 For inquiries, contact Dr. Natalie Borg at [email protected].
