Question

1. Describe critical thinking as it is used by nurses in decision making, delegation, and prioritization.

2. Explain the relationship of the nursing process to critical thinking.

3. Outline the components of the nursing process and their cyclical nature.

Answer 1

1. Critical thinking is a way to solve problems using reasoning. Decision making happens when there are several options or courses of action that one might take to solve a problem or take care of a situation. It is an end point of critical thinking. If time is taken to weigh each option appropriately then a well informed decision will be the result. Prioritization: Nurses are responsible for prioritizing and individualizing a client’s plan of care. Nurses decided which needs or problems require immediate action and which ones could be delayed until a later time because they are not urgent.Nurses identify problems, formulate interventions to address those problems, and prioritize interventions that must be accomplished quickly to achieve optimum client outcomes. Delegation is the process for a nurse to direct another person to perform nursing tasks and activities. Nurses responsible for delegation must be aware of many variables aside from the client’s condition. For safely and appropriate delegation of nursing care, the nurse must have an understanding and identify which tasks may be delegated, when the tasks may be delegated, and to whom the tasks may be delegated.

2. The nursing process is a systematic, rational method of planning and providing specialized nursing. The steps of the nursing process are assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation where critical thinking is applied by nurses in each steps. Each nurse seeks awareness of reasoning as he/she applies the criteria and considerations and as thinking evolves. Critical thinking is applied by nurses in nursing process to problems of patients and decision-making process with creativity to enhance the effect of care given to patient. It is an essential process for a safe, efficient and skilful nursing intervention. Critical thinking in nursing process is a learned skill that increases the quality of care given to patients and improves outcomes.

Example, "a critically thinking nurse will hold a patient's blood pressure medicines and contact the physician when he or she notes that the patient's blood pressure is below an acceptable level." In this case, lack of critical thinking skills could put the patient in jeopardy by allowing the blood pressure to continue falling.”

3. The nursing process functions as a systematic guide to client-centered care with 5 components.

These are assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation.

            Assessment: Collect client’s health data

            Diagnosis: Analyses assessment data to determine diagnosis.

            Outcome identification: Identifies expected outcomes of client for nursing diagnosis.

            Planning: Develops plan of care and prescribe intervention to attain expected outcomes.

            Implementation: implements the interventions (action types) in the plan of care

            Evaluation: Evaluates clients attainment of outcomes.