Processing Information: Nurses must quickly process both previously learned and new information about patients, work environment, and applicable evidence.
Clinical Judgment: Evaluating and selecting actions to meet goals.
Decision-Making: Involves choices and evaluating situations, sometimes with no clear answers.
Critical Thinking Skills
Interpretation: Understand patterns and categorize data.
Analysis: Open-minded data examination without assumptions.
Inference: Determine significance and relationships among findings.
Evaluation: Objectively look at outcomes and determine appropriateness of actions.
Explanation: Support conclusions with evidence and knowledge.
Self-Regulation: Reflect on experiences and improve performance.
Attributes of a Critical Thinker
Truth-seeking: Courageous, honest, and objective.
Open-mindedness: Tolerance and respect for different views.
Analytical: Anticipates results using evidence-based knowledge.
Systematic: Organized and focused inquiry.
Self-confidence: Trust in personal reasoning and experiences.
Inquisitiveness: Pursuit of knowledge and learning.
Maturity: Reflect on judgments and manage multiple solutions.
Reflection in Nursing
Reflective Learning: Analyzing experiences to improve future outcomes.
Debriefing: Encourages reflective learning, crucial for transferring theoretical knowledge to practice.
Levels of Critical Thinking
Basic: Task-oriented, rule-based thinking.
Complex: Trust in personal decisions increases.
Commitment: Independent decision-making, accountability for choices.
Critical Thinking Competencies
General Critical Thinking: Includes scientific method, problem-solving, and decision-making.
Specific to Nursing: Diagnostic reasoning, clinical decision-making.
Nursing Process: Involves assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Developing Critical Thinking Skills
Active Engagement: Apply principles in clinical rotations.
Reflective Journaling: Clarify learning and experiences.
Meeting with Colleagues: Discuss and examine work experiences.
Concept Mapping: Visual representation of patient problems and interventions.
NCLEX Review Questions
Diagnostic Reasoning: Should not be done haphazardly but systematically.
Nursing Process: Incorporates critical thinking skills for patient-centered care.