Decision Making in Nursing Practice - Importance, Core Principles, Framework and Theories

Running head: DECISION MAKING IN NURSING PRACTICE
Decision Making in Nursing Practice
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1DECISION MAKING IN NURSING PRACTICE
Introduction
The nursing practice is considered to be one of the most important health sector practices
in the society. This is why the communication skills will have to be proper and one of the major
aspects will be the effective decision making. Effective decision making is indeed very important
since the nurses may have to take sudden decisions in many cases. The focus of the nursing
practice is on serving the human beings in their most critical conditions. The interpersonal
communication is one of the most important aspects in the nursing practice. It is to mention that
the decision making really has a big issue in the successful nursing practice. The decisions have
to be made very suddenly as the conditions of the patients can turn out to be very much critical.
It is indeed very important for the nurses to take the proper actions in certain cases (Lachman
2012).
The purpose of this paper is to identify the sections where the nurses will have to
problems. Then only they can find some solutions to these problems indeed. Uncertainty is one
of the biggest risks in every scenario, especially if it is regarding the life of the human beings.
Their sole purpose of the profession is to save the lives of the human beings from all angles.
These are the very reasons why the nurses must be very much cautious about their works. They
must always create an environment that should be constructive enough (Lachman 2012). They
always have to remember that the critical situations do not come beforehand. They have to be
prepared for all the consequences. They have to analyze the critical aspect of all the situations
and take the proper action indeed. In this part three theories are going to be discussed. The three
theories are information processing theory, social judgment theory and cognitive continuum
theory. These three theories are very much important for the nursing practice. However, the
cognitive continuum theory is very much important for the nursing practice because inter

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professional teamwork can b e increased through the implementation of this theory. The inter
professional teamwork or collaboration is indeed very important in the nursing practice.
Core principles of nursing practice
There are some core principles or ethical things in the nursing practice. The nurses
always have to maintain these ethical codes as their profession deals with the saving the lives of
the human beings (Grove, Burns & Gray 2012). In this scenario, they have to focus on their
power of the decision making indeed. They have to maintain a good relationship with the
patients, their families, colleagues, carers of the patients and all other persons (Morton et al.
2017). These are the reasons as to why the nurses will have to concentrate on all these things
properly. At first it has to be mentioned which kind of people are included as the nursing staff.
The nursing staff generally means the nurses, ward managers in the hospitals, specialist nurses,
senior nurses, nursing interns and the student nurses (Grove, Burns & Gray 2012). The
community nurses are also the part of the nursing staff members. There are some core ethical
principles that all the nurses have to keep in their minds as they take the oath of saving the lives
of the patients in any situation. These principles are:-
The nurses should treat everyone with the utmost care and humanity. They should keep
their dignity at the first place when treating with the patients (Parahoo 2014). The nurses have to
understand the basic needs of the patients and provide the care according to that only. They
should treat the people equally with best efficiency they can provide.
The nurses are liable for answering for all the judgments and actions they take. They
might have to make some strict decisions as they are not aware of the critical facts can arise in
what time (Parahoo 2014) If these decisions can affect the patients, they might be held

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responsible as guilty. This is why the nurses will have to take up the responsibility for their
faults. The nurses and other nursing staff will have to work very closely with all the patients on
the floor (Tylor 2012).
They will need to build a strong team work between them indeed. They should have a
strong positive influence on the patients and they should provide the patients with the utmost
care indeed (Masters 2015). All the nurses and other nursing staffs have to be updated with the
recent use of technologies and they have to update their skills as well. This will surely be
important for the effective decision making process. The nurses will be able to take up the
important decisions as per their knowledge and skills indeed. The nurses must possess a good
understanding on the matters that arise during their work on the floor (Alligood 2013).
They have to be sensitive and be able to take quick decisions indeed. They are the ones
who should lead the other health sector employees by the proper example. They should influence
the other staffs and motivate them to complete their works on time. These things are very much
important indeed. The other staffs can feel motivated by the decision making power of the nurses
(DeNisco & Barker 2013).
The decision making framework
The decision making framework is very important for all the nurses and the midwives.
The national framework in Australia for the nurses should be followed properly. This framework
is very important in this context indeed (Thompson et al. 2013). The purpose of providing the
national framework is to develop the skills of the nurses primarily. The principles of this
framework are simply based on providing the patients with the proper work indeed. The
stakeholders who are engaged in this development of the nurses and midwives are the employers,