Abstract:

Decision making in clinical settings is vital in order to provide safe, top quality care for the community and to improve patient care outcomes. Nurses have to make clinical decisions in complex, information-intensive environments. Knowledge level, personal characteristics, past experience, job complexities and environmental factors can all have an effect on the accurate and efficient clinical decisions that nurses make. Laws, ethical principles and culture determine the boundaries of clinical decision making. An analytical and intuitive approach must be used for effective clinical decision making in nursing. It is stated that these approaches and the models that they are based on affect the quality of nursing practice. An understanding of clinical decision making helps develop new methods that lead to correct clinical decision making in nursing. The development of clinical decision making contributes to the safe delivery of health care services to society. Clinical decision making in nursing, factors affecting decision making, decision-making models and approaches that support decision making will be discussed in this review.

Keywords: