Representing Public Health Nursing Intervention Concepts with HHCC and NIC

Purpose: It is imperative that public health nurses define their services and provide evidence supporting the effectiveness of interventions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which two standardized nursing terminologies –Home Health Care Classification (HHCC) and Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) represent public health nursing practice according to core public health function in Public Health Nursing Intervention model. Methods: First, we divided all HHCC and NIC interventions into intervention focus levels: individual/ family focused, community focused, and system focused. Second, we categorized HHCC and NIC interventions according to core public health functions: assessment, policy development, and assurance and the categories of interventions in the PHI Model. Results: We identified HHCC and NIC Nursing interventions that represented public health nursing concepts across core public health functions and categories of the PHI model. Analysis of the findings demonstrated that HHCC and NIC have terms for the concepts in the PHI model. Conclusion: Although HHCC and NIC cover many concepts in public health nursing practice, additional research is needed to extend these terminologies and to evaluate other standardized terminologies that can reflect more comprehensively public health nursing interventions.