Clinical decision-making levels of nursing students and affecting factors

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Although clinical decision-making is an integral part of nursing practice, there are very few studies which investigate the factors affecting decision-making. This study was conducted to find out nursing students' levels of clinical decision-making and their affecting factors.MATERIALS AND METHODS: This research was carried out with a cross-sectional and descriptive design. This research was carried out on 3621st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students studying at a faculty of health sciences department of nursing. The data of this research were collected by using a "Sociodemographic Data Collection Form" and "The Clinical Decision-Making in Nursing Scale (CDMNS)." In the analysis of the data, numbers, percentages, and means were used with Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test.RESULTS: The mean age of the students was 20.75 +/- 1.91 years, 80.9% of the students were female and 63% were graduates of elite Anatolian or science high schools. The students' total "CDMNS" score mean was 100.81 +/- 18.06. It was found that variables such as grade, gender, the high school of graduation, the number of people living in the family, education and employment status of the parents, having chosen the department willingly, and income and employment status did not affect the clinical decision-making status of the students (p>0.05).CONCLUSION: As a result of this study, it was found that the students' status of clinical decision-making is at a medium level. It is recommended to repeat this study on students studying in different curricula in nursing, on a larger sample group and to analyze the students' level of clinical decision-making in terms of variables such as critical thinking, problem solving and their clinical learning environment.