Relational Inquiry in Nursing Practice: Impact on Clinical Reasoning

Relational Inquiry
Name:
Institution
Date:

Relational inquiry in nursing practice is used when a nurse has to understand patients’
needs in a complicated context and attend to them. Clinical reasoning is a process where nurses
understand a patients’ problem by gathering cues from the patient, processing the information,
plan an intervention, evaluate outcomes, reflect, and learn from the process. This essay will be
discussing the impact of relational inquiry when recognizing and analyzing cues to action in the
process of clinical reasoning.
The scenario given describes how the charge nurse handles a complicated situation of
patients going for a surgical operation. Pre-operational standards require that a patient is fully
prepared before going for the surgical, and they have given consent to the surgical procedure.
Foreign objects are not allowed in the operating room as it increases chances for infections to the
patient (Van Klei et al. 2012). The relational inquiry is about understanding the patients' needs
and attending to them, and in this scenario, the charge nurse attends to the cultural needs of the
patient before he goes for surgery. The charge nurse shows professional nursing practice
qualities when she collaborates with other nurses to address the cultural needs of the patient.
Culture is a way of life of a group of people and looks into how these people who are considered
a community does their things as manifested by their behavior, values, and beliefs. Relational
inquiry requires that the physical, emotional, and social needs of a patient are well addressed in
the complicated context for the well-being of the patient. The charge nurse collaborates with