Which phase focuses on interpreting data to form a clinical judgment about the patient's status?

• A. Nursing diagnosis
• B. Assessment
• C. Evaluation
• D. Planning

Answer: (B)

Interpretation of collected data to form a clinical judgment about the patient’s status is the core activity of the assessment phase. In assessment, the nurse gathers subjective information from the patient and objective data from exams and tests, then analyzes and synthesizes all this information to create a clear picture of the patient’s current health status, including problems, strengths, and priorities. This analytic process—making sense of the data to determine what is happening right now—drives the next steps in care.

Nursing diagnosis uses that interpreted data to articulate specific problems or risks; planning then uses those diagnoses to set goals and outline interventions; evaluation checks whether those goals were met by comparing actual outcomes to expected ones. So the act of interpreting data to form a status judgment is what defines the assessment phase.