Which of the following is NOT one of the six steps of the nursing process?

• A. Assessment
• B. Documentation
• C. Diagnosis
• D. Planning

Answer: (B)

The nursing process is a systematic sequence that guides how care is planned and delivered: you gather data through assessment, identify patient problems through diagnosis, set goals and plan interventions, carry them out through implementation, and judge how well the patient is progressing through evaluation. Documentation, while essential for recording data, decisions, and outcomes, is not treated as a separate step in this framework. It supports and accompanies every phase, but the core steps themselves are assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. That’s why the item that isn’t recognized as a distinct step in the process is documentation—the others fit directly into the sequence of the nursing process.