Interpretation of an international terminology standard in the development of a logic-based compositional terminology

PURPOSE Version 1.0 of the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) is a logic-based compositional terminology. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 18104:2003 Health Informatics-Integration of a reference terminology model for nursing is an international standard to support the development, testing and implementation of nursing terminologies. METHODS This study examines how ISO 18104:2003 has been interpreted in the development of ICNP Version 1.0 by identifying mappings between ICNP and the ISO standard. Representations of diagnostic and interventional statements within ICNP are also analyzed according to the requirements mandated by the ISO standard. RESULTS All structural components of ISO 18104:2003 i.e. semantic categories, semantic domains, qualifiers and semantic links are represented either directly or in interpreted form within ICNP. The formal representations within ICNP of diagnostic and interventional statements meet the requirement of the ISO standard. CONCLUSIONS The findings of this study demonstrate that ICNP Version 1.0 conforms to ISO 18104:2003. More importantly perhaps, this study provides practical examples of how components of a terminology standard might be interpreted and it examines how such a standard might be used to support the definition of high-level schemata in developing logic-based compositional terminologies.