Consensus of the Characteristics of Clinical Judgement Utilised by Nurses’ in Their Practice: Results of a Survey

Abstract

Clinical judgement is an important component of safe and effective nursing care. Clinical judgement remains a challenging cognitive process to articulate and assess. An integrative review of the literature conducted in 2016 identified 13 characteristics of clinical judgement. This paper reports the results of a 2-phase survey to obtain consensus whether these characteristics identified accurately represented nurses' perception of clinical judgement. The 2-phase survey was administered via an online survey software tool. The survey in phase 1 sought Yes/No answers for nurse academics with recruitment via a hyperlink in an email to individuals identified from University websites, Google and published articles. In phase 2, the survey was modified to a Likert scale and recruitment occurred via online networks and was open to all nurses. The results identified that the characteristics accurately represented the nurse's perception of clinical judgement. By articulating the characteristics, it allows clinical judgement to be easily described and can therefore be applied to both nursing research and education.

The alignment of nursing actions to the characteristics of clinical judgement of undergraduate student nurses

“…This study has shown that the nursing actions participants enact during a HFS of a patient with COPD can be related to the 12 characteristics of clinical judgement identified by Jacobs et al [4,5] However, it was difficult to differentiate whether the nursing actions were experiential knowledge or practical knowledge. Perhaps we can consider there are only 11 characteristics that pertain to clinical judgement, combin-ing both experiential knowledge and practical knowledge.…”

“…Utilising the results of our first study which identified and validated 12 characteristics of clinical judgement, [4,5] the aim of this second study was to align the nursing actions of student nurses to the characteristics of clinical judgement.…”

“…Two studies were conducted, the first study established consensus of the characteristics of clinical judgement in nursing. [4,5] This paper reports the second study describing the alignment of the nursing actions to the characteristics of clinical judgement of undergraduate student nurses using a scenario of a patient experiencing an exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with respiratory difficulties.…”

Evaluation of academic nurses performance at critical care unit in Hillah City/Iraq

“…Regarding the critical-care nurses' experience, our result showed that the majority of nurses (87.9%) had (1-5 years) experience in nursing, (11.0%) had (6-10 years) as a total experience in their current hospitals and (1.1%) had more than eleven and more years' experience as a nurse. In another study of Jacobs and others, their findings reveal that the time period of working of participants in the field of nursing varied from (5 -42) years, and fifteen (52%) of them have experience range from (30 -45) years (Jacobs et al, 2018).…”

Evaluating of academic nurses' clinical judgement skills in a critical care unit at Babylon City, Iraq

“…Regarding the experience of nurses, our findings indicated that the majority of nurses (87.9 %) are within (1-5) years. In another research conduct by Jacobs and colleagues, found that participants' job experience in the area of nursing ranged from (5 to 42) years, with (52%) of them having experience ranging from 30 to 45 years (Jacobs et al, 2018). In terms of residence, the majority of them reside in urban regions, which makes up the majority of the participant (65.9 %).…”