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Patients are interested in receiving accurate diagnostic and prognostic information. Models and reasoning about diagnoses have been extensively investigated from a foundational perspective; however, for all its importance, prognosis has yet to receive a comparable degree of philosophical and methodological attention, and this may be due to the difficulties inherent in accurate prognostics. In the light of these considerations, we discuss a considerable body of critical thinking on the topic of prognostication and its strict relations with diagnostic reasoning, pointing out the distinction between nosographic and pathophysiological types of diagnosis and prognosis, underlying the importance of the explication and explanation processes. We then distinguish between various forms of hypothetical reasoning applied to reach diagnostic and prognostic judgments, comparing them with specific forms of abductive reasoning. The main thesis is that creative abduction regarding clinical hypotheses in diagnostic process is very unlikely to occur, whereas this seems to be often the case for prognostic judgments. The reasons behind this distinction are due to the different types of uncertainty involved in diagnostic and prognostic judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale Diagnostic systems exist in many disciplines. Strengths and weaknesses of such diagnostic systems vary considerably within and among disciplinary domains of the health sciences. The logical framework behind each diagnostic process involves identifying a condition, seeking causes, establishing a prognosis and a treatment. Notably, a clinical diagnosis is a judgment focused on the present, aiming to cluster events associated with a disease. Diagnostic judgment focuses on the past when it attempts to isolate possible causes, and towards the future when it indicates prognoses and treatments. Aims and objectives The paper suggests ways to differentiate nursing diagnosis from medical diagnoses, discussing ontology and abductive reasoning for doctors and nurses. Conclusions The proposed logical framework has been applied to a nursing taxonomy-based diagnostic system in order to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses consistently with the epistemology of a diagnostic judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnostic frameworks are essential to many scientific and technological activities and clinical practice. This study examines the main fundamental aspects of such frameworks. The three components required for all diagnoses are identified and examined, i.e. their normative dimension, temporal nature and structure, and teleological perspective. The normative dimension of a diagnosis is based on (1) epistemic values when associated with Hempel's inductive risk concerning the balance between false-positive and false-negative outcomes, leading to probabilistic judgements; and (2) non-epistemic values when related to ideas such as well-being, normality, illness, etc, as idealized norms or ideal points of reference. It should be noted that medical diagnoses match the three necessary components, while some essential diagnostic frameworks - the taxonomies of Gordon and NANDA - in nursing lack some components. The main lack is normative as the most popular frameworks in nursing diagnosis seem to be descriptions of observed reality rather than normative and value-based judgements in which both epistemic and non-epistemic values may coexist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]