title: Crisis: what it is and is not.
abstract: Crisis is one example of a concept widely used and misused in the vocabulary of the nursing professional. The technique of concept analysis was used to develop four criteria for the diagnosis of a client as having attributes congruent with the concept of crisis and to differentiate crisis from related concepts, eg, stress and emergency. Variations of a model case were developed to illustrate what crisis is and what it is not. Antecedents, consequents, and empirical referents for crisis are also identified.
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D004630:Emergencies; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D009626:Terminology as Topic