Infection diagnoses?! Plz help!

[NMS2010]

The pt Iwrote my midterm comprehensive careplan on has MRSA. He was admitted for a "sore" that wouldn't heal, but the culture showed MRSA of the bloodstream. My prof told me that my primary diagnoses should be infection. Now I am so stressed out about this! I thought that infection is a medical diagnoses, not a nursing diagnoses?! I cannot find any validation for using infection as a nursing diagnoses. I thought it was Risk for Infection, for nurses, but clearly my pt is not at risk bc he actually has a systemic infection. I don't want to turn in "infection" when I don't think that it is NANDA approved. Does anyone have any idea about this? There's no way I'm putting anything on my list that's not NANDA approved, but at the same time I feel a little stressed about going against what my prof tells me to do! So maybe I'm wrong and it really is a nursing diagnoses. Agh! Thanks for your help!

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

i don't think your instructor meant for you to literally use infection as a nursing diagnosis. nursing problems are always based on the patient's symptoms. you have a sore that won't heal because of this infection. did you look through a nursing diagnosis reference and read the definitions of the nursing diagnoses? you really can't depend on choosing the nursing diagnoses only by their names because they are merely names, or labels, that represent a longer definition of a nursing problem. if this person is not healing because their body is unsuccessfully fighting off this mrsa infection there is a nursing diagnosis for this: ineffective protection--definition: decrease in the ability to guard self from internal or external threats such as illness or injury (page 219, nanda international nursing diagnoses: definitions and classifications 2009-2011). you can find the defining characteristics (symptoms) and related factors (causes) for it in a nursing diagnosis reference. if you have a recent edition of taber's cyclopedic medical dictionary you will find all that information in the appendix. i would also consider using impaired skin (or tissue) integrity depending on the depth of the wound to cover your treatment of the wound.

[NMS2010]

Thanks for your help. I understand what you're saying, and I did use those as top diagnoses in my prioritized list. When I consulted with my prof about my prioritized list I was told that I needed to add infection as my #1 priority. I asked multiple times about the idea that infection is not a nursing diagnosis. In fact, basically saying what you just did. And kept getting told that yes it is a nursing diagnosis. So I've been stressing out about it trying to find the answer. Maybe there was just some big time miscommunication going on. Maybe she wasn't getting what I wasn't saying, and visa-versa. Guess I'll find out when I get my grade! Thanks again!