Nursing Decision-Making Model

Alongside this, there are other theories that can apply to determine which types of decision-making framework is more appropriate in different situations depending on the complexity, ambiguity and the presentation of the problem. The three main decision-making frameworks are information processing theory, intuition theory and cognitive continuum theory (Aston et al, 2010). Both Tanner and Levette et al’s decision making model based on information-processing theory where a decision maker gather information from a number of sources and store relevant information both in short and long-term memory (Standing 2014). As a student nurse this theory can utilised as an educational decision-making framework. In contrast, intuition model based on experience

Tanner (2006) defined clinical judgment is “an interpretation or conclusion about a patient’s needs, concerns or health problem and the decision to take action or not, use or modify standard approaches, or improvise new ones as deemed appropriate by the patient’s response”. And he also suggested that there are various factors that impact on this process such as nurses’ experience and perspective, knowledge of the patients, their preferences and culture of the care environment. This model, clinical judgment viewed as a problem-solving activity and consists of four phases noticing, interpreting, responding and reflection. It begins with assessment of the patient followed by the planning and implementation of nursing interventions and finish with evaluation or reflection of the effectiveness of those nursing actions. Noticing refers to observing, which is very similar to the assessment, gathering information and data. Interpreting is the process of assembling information, determining what things go together to make sense of it and making interpretation or diagnosing. Responding comes up without plan, deciding what the nurse should do for that patient and then implementing the nursing action and interventions depending on patient needs. Reflection is about evaluating those interventions what the nurse are doing for patient is effective or not, are they doing any improvement or is there anything nurse could do it in a different way to have best result (Baker 2009;Tanner 2006). There are many advantages and disadvantages of Tanner (2006) model of clinical judgement. This model influences more by the nurse’s clinical judgement than the objective data about the situation. The types of reasoning patterns tend to vary with the experience of the nurse. Novice nurse tends to rely on