本研究旨在瞭解某醫院住院老年人常見的護理診斷及導因，並進一步與國內外文獻 進行比較。研究採回溯式資料彙整的方法，擷取護理計畫電腦資料庫中華民國82年8月至 83年4月，60歲以上住院病人之護理診斷及導因，進行整理分析，並由五位評審員將所得結 果與文獻比對。 研究結果顯示：某醫院住院老年病人一般性護理診斷共計19項，出現頻率最高者為「潛 在性感染」，其次為「知識不足」、「潛在性損傷」、「疼痛」、及「呼吸道清除功能失效」等； 與各項護理診斷有關的導因分別由3項至11項不等。文獻中曾經用在住院老年人的護理診斷 共29項，其中雖有7項與本研究護理診斷名稱完全相同，但導因卻仍有差異。此結果顯示出 中外護理人員專業判斷的獨特性及差異性，也印證了護理診斷需作泛文化性考量的說法。

　　　　　The purpose of this study was to understand the nursing diagnosis elderly patients used in a general hospital. The retrospective method was used to analize the data from the nursing diagnosis of computerized data base of 5953 cases. Nineteen nursing diagnoses were found to be applied to elderly patients. The frequently used diagnoses were; potential for infection, knowledge deficiency, potential for injury, pain and ineffectiveness of clearance. Compare with literature, there are seven nursing diagnoses as the same but with different etiologies. The result presented that the nurses' judgments about nursing diagnoses are independent and cultural different. These results provide examples of the nursing diagnosis used on the elderly patients with consideration for cross culture differences.