If you’re interested in nursing as a potential career, you may have heard about nursing interventions and wondered what they are. Keep reading to learn all about nursing interventions, including the 3 categories, 4 types, and 7 domains of nursing interventions.
Popular Online Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) Programs
GCU’s College of Nursing and Health Care Professions has a nearly 35-year tradition of preparing students to fill evolving healthcare roles as highly qualified professionals. GCU offers a full spectrum of nursing degrees, from a pre-licensure BSN degree to a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program.
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WGU’s award-winning online programs are created to help you succeed while graduating faster and with less debt. WGU is a CCNE accredited, nonprofit university offering nursing bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
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Walden’s online programs for nursing meet rigorous standards for academic quality and integrity, and the School of Nursing teaching faculty all hold doctorates. With three degree completion options, you can choose a bachelor’s in nursing path that makes sense for your busy, unpredictable schedule.
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Enrollment: Nationwide, excluding NY, RI and CT. Certain programs have additional state restrictions. Check with Walden for details.
As a working RN, you need a flexible, transfer-friendly program to help you save time and money as you take the next step in your nursing career. In our CCNE-accredited4
RN to BSN program, you can transfer in up to 134 credits—which is nearly 75% of program requirements. Your transfer credits can be reviewed in one business day (on average).
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Nursing interventions are actions that nurses take to promote health, prevent disease, and help patients heal and recover from illness and injury.
In other words, interventions are the things that nurses do to care for their patients. Ideally, they’re evidence-based and are aimed at achieving specific outcomes.
Common nursing interventions include:
- Providing patient education
- Administering medication
- Maintaining a safe environment
Nurses play an important role in promoting self-care and helping patients to make lifestyle changes that can improve their overall health and well-being. Nursing interventions are tailored to meet the needs of each patient, family, or group and can be modified as the patient’s or family’s needs change.
Nursing interventions can be classified into three categories:
- Independent
- Dependent
- Interdependent
Independent Nursing Interventions
Independent nursing interventions are those that can be carried out by the nurse without seeking input or help from others. For example, administering most medications or changing a dressing.
Dependent Nursing Interventions
Dependent nursing interventions are those that require the help or supervision of another healthcare professional. For example, stopping the bleeding from a wound that needs suturing.
Interdependent Nursing Interventions
Interdependent nursing interventions are those that require the coordinated efforts of a nurse and at least one other member of the healthcare team. For example, when performing CPR, a nurse may provide chest compressions while another team member provides ventilation for a patient.
Based on their roles in healthcare, nurses use four main types of nursing interventions to achieve specific health-related outcomes, depending on the people they care for:
- Health promotion
- Disease prevention
- Treatment
- Rehabilitation
These 4 types of nursing interventions can be carried out in many different settings, including hospitals, clinics, schools, and even patients’ homes.
1. Health Promotion Interventions
Health promotion interventions aim to improve people’s overall health and well-being and prevent injuries.
Nurses can provide patient education on healthy lifestyle choices such as eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly.
In addition, nurses can help patients to quit smoking and reduce their alcohol intake.
2. Disease Prevention Interventions
The goal of disease prevention interventions is to reduce the risk of people developing specific diseases and illnesses.
Immunizations are one of the most important nursing interventions in this category. Immunizations help to protect individuals from diseases, many of which can be deadly. By ensuring that patients are up-to-date on their vaccinations, nurses can help reduce the spread of disease and save lives.
Nurses also play an important role in providing education about the importance of immunizations. By raising awareness about the dangers of disease and the efficacy of vaccines, nurses can help to promote immunization rates and improve public health.
3. Treatment Interventions
The purpose of treatment interventions is to manage and treat existing health problems.
The most common treatment nurses provide is pain control. Nurses administer analgesics, reposition patients, provide cold packs, and elevate injured extremities.
4. Rehabilitation Interventions
Rehabilitation interventions help patients regain function after an injury or illness.
Some examples of this include:
-
Assisting a patient to ambulate to regain their strength and lung capacity again after surgery.
-
Teaching patients how to use an incentive spirometer to improve lung function after surgery or prolonged bed rest.
Popular Online Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) Programs
GCU’s College of Nursing and Health Care Professions has a nearly 35-year tradition of preparing students to fill evolving healthcare roles as highly qualified professionals. GCU offers a full spectrum of nursing degrees, from a pre-licensure BSN degree to a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program.
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite
WGU’s award-winning online programs are created to help you succeed while graduating faster and with less debt. WGU is a CCNE accredited, nonprofit university offering nursing bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite
Walden’s online programs for nursing meet rigorous standards for academic quality and integrity, and the School of Nursing teaching faculty all hold doctorates. With three degree completion options, you can choose a bachelor’s in nursing path that makes sense for your busy, unpredictable schedule.
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite
Enrollment: Nationwide, excluding NY, RI and CT. Certain programs have additional state restrictions. Check with Walden for details.
As a working RN, you need a flexible, transfer-friendly program to help you save time and money as you take the next step in your nursing career. In our CCNE-accredited4
RN to BSN program, you can transfer in up to 134 credits—which is nearly 75% of program requirements. Your transfer credits can be reviewed in one business day (on average).
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite
7 Domains of Nursing Interventions
Another way to identify the different types of nursing interventions is by their domain. The 565 nursing interventions are grouped into 7 different nursing intervention domains in NIC.
The 7 domains or types of nursing interventions are:
- Physiological: Basic
- Physiological: Complex
- Behavioral
- Safety
- Family
- Health System
- Community
Nursing interventions are designed to address the specific needs of each patient, family, or community. They are customized to fit the specific needs of each patient or family.
In many cases, nursing interventions will focus on helping a patient cope with a chronic illness or to manage a complex health condition. However, some nursing interventions are used to promote healthy lifestyles, prevent injuries, and provide education and support for patients and their families.
Ultimately, the goal of nursing interventions is to improve the health and well-being of all people and the groups and communities they live within.
The Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) is a system that was first published in 1992 as a way to standardize the language and communication of nursing work and “serve as the foundation for (the) nursing process in nursing practice, education, and research”.
Based on ongoing research, the NIC system provides a comprehensive list of standardized nursing interventions that can be used to address patient care needs, regardless of where they may live.
The most recent 7th edition of the NIC was published in 2018. It contains 565 standardized nursing interventions and over 13,500 nursing activities.
Along with the Nursing Outcomes Classification system (NOC), the purpose of NIC is to provide standardized terms and nursing language for “…documenting nursing care, communicating nursing care across settings, sharing data across systems, evaluating outcomes, conducting effectiveness research, measuring nursing productivity, evaluating nursing competencies, facilitating reimbursement…determining staffing needs, designing curriculum and for inclusion in big data sets.”
Popular Online Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) Programs
GCU’s College of Nursing and Health Care Professions has a nearly 35-year tradition of preparing students to fill evolving healthcare roles as highly qualified professionals. GCU offers a full spectrum of nursing degrees, from a pre-licensure BSN degree to a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program.
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite
WGU’s award-winning online programs are created to help you succeed while graduating faster and with less debt. WGU is a CCNE accredited, nonprofit university offering nursing bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite
Walden’s online programs for nursing meet rigorous standards for academic quality and integrity, and the School of Nursing teaching faculty all hold doctorates. With three degree completion options, you can choose a bachelor’s in nursing path that makes sense for your busy, unpredictable schedule.
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite
Enrollment: Nationwide, excluding NY, RI and CT. Certain programs have additional state restrictions. Check with Walden for details.
As a working RN, you need a flexible, transfer-friendly program to help you save time and money as you take the next step in your nursing career. In our CCNE-accredited4
RN to BSN program, you can transfer in up to 134 credits—which is nearly 75% of program requirements. Your transfer credits can be reviewed in one business day (on average).
Accreditation
Location
Prerequisite