AACN DOMAINS FOR NURSING
Domain 1: Knowledge for Nursing Practice -
✔integration, translation, and application of established and evolving disciplinary
nursing knowledge and ways of knowing, as well as knowledge from other disciplines,
including a foundation in liberal arts and natural and social sciences. This distinguishes
the practice of professional nursing and forms the basis for clinical judgment and
innovation in nursing practice.
Contextual Statement: Knowledge of Nursing Practice provides the context for
understanding nursing as a scientific discipline. The lens of nursing, informed by nursing
history, knowledge, and science, reflects nursing's desire to incorporate multiple
perspectives into nursing practice, leading to nursing's unique way of knowing and
caring.
Domain 2: Person-Centered Care -
✔Person-centered care focuses on the individual within multiple complicated
contexts, including family and/or important others. Person-centered care is holistic,
individualized, just, respectful, compassionate, coordinated, evidence-based, and
developmentally appropriate. Person-centered care builds on a scientific body of
knowledge that guides nursing practice regardless of specialty or functional area.
Contextual Statement: Person-centered care is the core purpose of nursing as a
discipline. This purpose intertwines with any functional area of nursing practice, from the
point of care where the hands of those that give and receive care meet, to the point of
systems-level nursing leadership.
Domain 3: Population Health -
✔Population health spans the healthcare delivery continuum from public health
prevention to disease management of populations and describes collaborative activities
with both traditional and non-traditional partnerships from affected communities, public
health, industry, academia, health care, local government entities, and others for the
improvement of equitable population health outcomes
Contextual Statement:
-Nurses play a critical role in advocating for, developing, and implementing policies that
impact population health globally and locally. In addition, nurses respond to crises and
provide care during emergencies, disasters, epidemics, or pandemics. The purpose of
these collaborative activities, including development of interventions and policies, is to
strive towards health equity and improved health for all.
Domain 4: Scholarship for Nursing Practice -
✔The generation, synthesis, translation, application, and dissemination of nursing
knowledge to improve health and transform health care.
Contextual Statement: Nursing scholarship informs science, enhances clinical practice,
influences policy, and impacts best practices for educating nurses as clinicians,
scholars, and leaders. Scholarship is inclusive of discovery, application, integration, and
