Development of Nursing Process and Care Plans in Historical Process

The nursing process is a systematic and individualized care method that includes steps such as defining the health care needs / problems of the healthy / ill individual, family / groups, planning and implementing the necessary nursing interventions, and evaluating the outcomes. When implemented effectively, care plans have significant contributions to professional nursing. The diagnostic stage, the first step of the nursing process, which was performed by Florence Nightingale and her colleagues, has the same age with modern nursing. The concept of nursing process was used for the first time in 1955 by Lydia Hall to describe "what the nurses should do and what they should do". In 1991, the final version of the American Nurses Association (ANA) Implementation Standards added the step of defining patient outcome. When reviewing the development of the nursing process in Turkey; it is seen that it was first added the Turkish literature with the translation of "Fundamentals of Nursing" by the Vehbi Koç Foundation. The purpose of the nursing process and requirement of the use of nursing process legally are emphasized in the “Nursing Regulation”, which was published in 2010 and includes the authorities, duties, and responsibilities of the nurses. In recent years, the development of the nursing process as well as the ways in which care plans have been implemented have changed and improved. When considering the benefits of nursing care plans which are still popular in making the nursing process visible, development and utilization of care plans should be encouraged.