Welcome to the website of

ACENDIO

The Association for Common European Nursing Diagnoses, Interventions and Outcomes

The Association for Common European Nursing Diagnoses, Interventions and Outcomes is a membership organisation established in 1995 to promote the development of nursing's professional language and provide a network across Europe for nurses interested in the development of a common language to describe the practice of nursing.

Nurses throughout Europe need to be able to share and compare information about practice in order to research and improve care, to manage nursing resources effectively and to ensure that nursing is visible in local, national and European policy.

To do this they first need to be able to express in their own language what it is they do for patients and clients, why, and with what outcomes. Next they must be able to share and compare their expressions with those of other nurses through a standardised, common, terminology which ensures that like is compared with like. Nursing's professional language must capture the full range and variety of individualised, holistic care: developing this language is not about standardising care but about achieving standards for the way we express nursing.

Nurses in some European countries are developing terminologies to meet their country need for a nursing language. Others have adapted or translated terminologies and classifications developed in other countries or by other disciplines but there is no overall co-ordination of these developments between countries.

International classifications have potential for nursing: nurses in some countries are using the International Classification of Functioning (ICF). The International Council of Nurses has begun the development of the ICNP (the International Classification of Nursing Practice).

ACENDIO supports this process by providing:

• Conferences, publications and presentations to advance understanding and work in this area
• A network for nurses in different European countries so that they can share knowledge about developments
• Resources such as reference lists and sample methodologies for developing and evaluating nursing vocabularies
• Interpretation of International standards for terminologies and classifications