Clinical Reasoning Cycle | Study

Running head: CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE
CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE
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CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE
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Clinical reasoning cycle can be described as the cyclical process that guides nurses
through a series of steps to identify the signs and symptoms of a disorder in a patient. This cycle
helps nurses to accordingly process the information to develop effective interventions. It also
allows them to evaluate the outcome of the interventions and make changes in the care plan if
required (Hunter & Arthur, 2016). This essay would cover the ways by which nursing
professionals can apply clinical reasoning cycle to care for a patient named Hadden who is
suffering from COPD. Hadden is facing issues with ‘medication self-management’ and this essay
would highlight various steps by which the nurses can help him to live better quality life through
management of his medications.
First criterion:
Clinical reasoning cycle enables nurses to collect cues and information and thereby
process the information to understand the priorities that need to be set (Bregagnollo et al., 2017).
This section would mainly describe the priorities that would be required for Hadden in regards of
his medical self-management. Following this, the importance of the priorities needs to be
discussed. Firstly; it has been found that Hadden is not aware of the importance of the
medicines. Therefore, he is seen to miss the medications often, which lead to exacerbation of his
respiratory distress. Secondly, he is found to be ignorant about his condition of health and has
poor understanding of the causes of the disorder. He is not at all aware about why such disorder
had affected him and how he could control the symptoms by himself by proper use of the
medications. Third, it is also found that home oxygen and CPAP had been prescribed for him.
However, the questions that are asked by Hadden to the nurse show that he is not aware of the
physiology behind taking the medicines. He also does not know about the ways how they are to

CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE
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be used. Fourth, he is also not educated enough about the significance of pulmonary
rehabilitation and the ways to reduce his smoking habits.
Health literacy ensures that individuals develop skills as well as confidence for making
informed decisions about their health and become active in their own care (Yazdani,
Hosseinzadeh & Hosseini, 2017). Experts also opine that health education helps people to
navigate healthcare systems on macro-level and become responsible with medication dosage and
schedules on micro-level (Kim et al., 2018). All these factors are acting as contributors to his
poor attributes of self-management of medications, making him suffer. Hence, the nursing
professionals should set priorities like development of effective understanding about the disorder
to the patient, proper health literacy about how to manage the symptoms, proper education about
the reason of using the medications and their subsequent dosage (Rosario et al., 2019). The
nurses should also motivate him and suggest him strategies to reduce his smoking addiction and
discuss the significance of attending pulmonary rehabilitation sessions for effective recovery and
management of the disorder.
Second criterion:
It now becomes important to identify and explain the nursing interventions that the nurses
can utilize for supporting Hadden in his medication self-management along with rationales for
the choice. Nurses play a significant role in health promotion that includes helping patients to
become responsible and develop their ‘informed self-medication and self-care’ competencies
(Donmez, Gungor & Gov, 2018). Clinical reasoning cycle proposes effectives steps which
guides nurses to develop interventions based on the priorities that had been set for developing the
nursing care plan (Baker & Fatoye, 2019). Firstly, to develop detailed idea about the disorder