Critical Thinking in Nursing

1. Critical Thinking in Nursing

2. Definition • Critical thinking is an active, organized, cognitive process used to carefully examine one’s thinking and the thinking of others.

3. Why do we need to think critically? • Need to make accurate and appropriate clinical decisions • Need to solve problems and find solutions • Need to plan care for each unique client and client problem • Need to seek knowledge and use it to make clinical decisions and problem solve • Need to be able to think creatively when planning care for clients

4. Aspects of Critical Thinking • To develop into an expert critical thinker the nurse needs to use: • Reflection • Language • Intuition

5. Levels of Critical Thinking • Basic Critical Thinking • Complex Critical Thinking • Commitment

6. Critical Thinking Competencies • General critical thinking competencies used by many disciplines, in many everyday situations. • Scientific method • Problem solving • Decision making

7. Critical Thinking Competencies • Specific critical thinking in clinical situations used by physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals. • Diagnostic reasoning/ Clinical inference • Clinical decision making

8. Critical Thinking Competencies • Specific critical thinking competency used in nursing practice • Nursing Process • Assessment • Analysis (Nursing Diagnosis) • Planning • Implementation • Evaluation

9. Critical Thinking Model • The model helps to explain how nurses make clinical judgments/ decisions in their clinical practice that result in safe, effective, nursing care. There are 5 components in this model of critical thinking: • Knowledge base • Experience in nursing • Critical thinking competencies • Attitudes for critical thinking • Standards for critical thinking

10. Critical Thinking Attitudes • Confidence • Thinking independently • Fairness • Responsibility and accountability • Risk taking • Discipline

11. Critical Thinking Attitudes • Perserverance • Creativity • Curosity • Integrity • Humility

12. Standards • Intellectual Standards- • 14 intellectual standards (Paul,1993) Nurses use these when using the nursing process: • 1. Confidence 7. Perseverance • 2. Independence 8. Creativity • 3. Fairness 9. Curiosity • 4. Responsibility 10. Integrity • 5. Risk taking 11. Humility • 6. Discipline

13. Standards • Professional standards • Sound ethical standards • When critically thinking must have a sense of their own values, beliefs, feelings and their clients/ client’s family’s values, beliefs, feelings • Scientifically based practice with standards developed by experts • Evidenced based practice • Standards developed as a result of evidence • These are minimum requirements that are necessary to give quality effective care