Demonstrating nurses' clinical decision-making
type: CreativeWork
description: The study answers the question: 'How can nurses' properly considered decisions relating to patient care be demonstrated?' Nurses in the United Kingdom have a professional requirement to demonstrate': the properly considered clinical decisions relating to patient care' (UKCC, 1994; NMC, 2002). However, their decisionmaking has been reported as complex and poorly understood, and apart from nursing records, little evidence exists to demonstrate their decisions. The development of the nurses' role as a decision-maker is traced from an origin in Nightingale's text (1860) through to the present day. This role is shaped by organisational, nursing and medical profession influences. Having established that nurses have a role as decision-makers, a conceptual framework is used to examine different explanations about the decision process, outcome, context and how decisions are made. Before undertaking fieldwork, a survey of nurses' decision-making in general medical and surgical wards was conducted. The findings were compared with the conceptual framework to generate questions and avenues for enquiry. An ethnographic study was undertaken in 1999 - 2000 in four general medical wards in two English provincial NHS Trusts with registered nurses (general). A model of decision-making was developed as a mid range theoretical explanation of how they made decisions. This involved a narrative based approach in which nurses generated an account (narrative) of knowing a patient and used this to identify needs. The patient was known in a narrative through three categories of information: nursing, management and medical. These categories were constructed through nurses' information seeking and processing using a tripartite conceptual lens. These facets correspond to different aspects of the nurse's role as a carer, care manager and medical assistant. The patient is known in three ways in a narrative, as a person to care for, an object to be managed, and as a medical case. An oral tradition s…
abstract: The study answers the question: 'How can nurses' properly considered decisions relating to patient care be demonstrated?' Nurses in the United Kingdom have a professional requirement to demonstrate': the properly considered clinical decisions relating to patient care' (UKCC, 1994; NMC, 2002). However, their decisionmaking has been reported as complex and poorly understood, and apart from nursing records, little evidence exists to demonstrate their decisions. The development of the nurses' role as a decision-maker is traced from an origin in Nightingale's text (1860) through to the present day. This role is shaped by organisational, nursing and medical profession influences. Having established that nurses have a role as decision-makers, a conceptual framework is used to examine different explanations about the decision process, outcome, context and how decisions are made. Before undertaking fieldwork, a survey of nurses' decision-making in general medical and surgical wards was conducted. The findings were compared with the conceptual framework to generate questions and avenues for enquiry. An ethnographic study was undertaken in 1999 - 2000 in four general medical wards in two English provincial NHS Trusts with registered nurses (general). A model of decision-making was developed as a mid range theoretical explanation of how they made decisions. This involved a narrative based approach in which nurses generated an account (narrative) of knowing a patient and used this to identify needs. The patient was known in a narrative through three categories of information: nursing, management and medical. These categories were constructed through nurses' information seeking and processing using a tripartite conceptual lens. These facets correspond to different aspects of the nurse's role as a carer, care manager and medical assistant. The patient is known in three ways in a narrative, as a person to care for, an object to be managed, and as a medical case. An oral tradition s…
author: Gurbutt, Russell
language: en
keywords: B700 - Nursing, B702 - Clinical practice nursing
date published: 2005-05
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:36:20Z
provider: University of Central Lancashire
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Central Lancashire