ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept, relevance, applicability and construction of nursing metrics. In England the importance of quality assessment and improvement in health care, including mental health, has been outlined in a range of policy documents and guidelines. Systematic measurement of quality in nursing performance has thus become important in the drive to document nursing’s influence on patient safety and outcomes and the quality of health care delivered by institutions. Measurable nursing indicators are also an important means for nursing to gain professional respect, in the health care sector as well as the scientific community, in accordance with some drivers towards evidenced-based practice. Adaptive engagement is a means of nurse and service user developing a shared understanding of needs and means of satisfying them. It is important that nursing metrics capture the quality of this process in a manner which subsequently informs and facilitates the resolution of such differences of opinion.
