Anxiety: Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
🎓 Educational reference. Match to your patient's actual assessment data and have your instructor review it.
Definition: Worry, tension, and physical arousal out of proportion to the situation, triggered by something the patient experiences as threatening.
Related factors ("related to")
- Health crisis or diagnosis
- Unfamiliar environment
- Threat to role or safety
Defining characteristics ("as evidenced by")
- Reports of worry, tension, apprehension
- Restlessness, increased heart rate
- Difficulty concentrating
Sample goals / outcomes
- Patient reports reduced anxiety and uses one coping strategy by end of shift.
Nursing interventions
- Provide calm, honest reassurance and information
- Teach relaxation and breathing techniques
- Encourage support and address specific fears
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Build a care plan freeAnxiety nursing diagnosis: FAQ
What is the Anxiety nursing diagnosis?
Worry, tension, and physical arousal out of proportion to the situation, triggered by something the patient experiences as threatening.
What are the related factors for Anxiety?
Common related factors: Health crisis or diagnosis; Unfamiliar environment; Threat to role or safety. In your care plan, write it as "Anxiety related to [factor] as evidenced by [your patient's data]."
What are nursing interventions for Anxiety?
Key interventions: Provide calm, honest reassurance and information; Teach relaxation and breathing techniques; Encourage support and address specific fears, each with a rationale in your plan.
For nursing education only, NOT medical advice and not a clinical decision-making tool. Nothing here should be used to assess, diagnose, or treat any real patient. Care plans and answers are unverified study drafts to review with your instructor or a licensed clinician and adapt to the individual patient and your institution’s protocols before any use.
Last reviewed 2026-07. Educational content in standard clinical language; not medical advice and not affiliated with NANDA-I/NIC/NOC.