This paper draws on the authors' experience in developing policy on nursing informatics, nursing languages, and research management. It considers the UK approach to nursing terminology, language development and classification, and discusses the merits and demerits of developing systematic and standardised vocabularies of patient/client problems and interventions. Some nurses are vehemently opposed, seeing nursing research and practice as humanistic, and the patient/client as a unique entity who cannot be captured in standardised terms. However, if this view is taken it would seem to militate against any large scale research in nursing, or research on outcomes. The paper explores the links between language, the concept of the patient/client, and the implications for the organisation of research.
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