Independent Decision Making in Nursing: Transitional Factors

This essay delves into the critical role of independent decision-making in nursing, emphasizing its significance in patient care and professional accountability. It explores the concept as a vital skill that refines with experience, particularly for novice nurses navigating diverse clinical scenarios. The essay discusses transitional factors, such as past experiences and cognitive biases, that influence decision-making processes. It highlights the impact of independent decisions on patient outcomes, managerial functionalities, and the overall quality of healthcare. Through real-world examples, like the case of a child with malaria, the essay illustrates the practical implications of independent decision-making in critical care settings. The importance of overcoming cognitive biases, utilizing relational impact, rational analysis, and outsider perspectives to make effective decisions is also discussed.

Running head: INDEPENDENT DECISION MAKING IN NURSING
TRANSITIONAL FACTOR IN NURSING
Student’s name
Name of the University
Author’s note

1
INDEPENDENT DECISION MAKING IN NURSING
Nursing is a sensitive profession which includes affection and individual care of patients.
Nursing influences the overall mental status of sick individuals by compassion, affection and
above all sensitivity. As a graduate nurse, I do possess the essential 4 determinants pertaining to
care.
 I have adequate responsibility pertaining to my duty and assigned work.
 I am capable to even go beyond my ways to serve an individual. Hourly rounding and
consistent attentiveness help me obtain the same qualities.
 Competence: I have successfully acquired academic knowledge by enrolling external
programs and seminar outside the university.
 I am a diligent worker with adequate passion, confidence, self-awareness and enormous work
ethics.
Reason behind transition (What)
In nursing, independent decision-making specifically refers to the appropriate selection between
diverse alternatives. This is a remarkably effective skill that ameliorates and refines with
subsequent experiences. Not only decision making but also significant clinical judgment is a very
crucial segment of professional nursing. Generally, novice nurses must possess deliberate and
effortful decision-making skills which gradually evolve to more proficient abilities with the
passage of time and experience. For example, many pieces of literature have effectively
exhibited the honest perception of several nursing students pertaining to healthy learning
environment coupled with academic motivation as well as clinic-oriented decision making
(Aktaş & Karabulut, 2016). Novel nurses are often thrust into a wide variety of roles that
facilitate them to opt for autonomous decision making because of lack of availability of
immediate expert recommendations. Sometimes, they solely need to embrace significant
decisions pertaining to patient health care which bear an enormous impact on their health.
Discussion and analysis of transitional factor (Why)
Nurses must be well-equipped with independent decision making successfully. This occurs in
many unforeseen clinical situations (Bucknall et al., 2016). They must utilise a moderately
conscious pattern of individual decision making when no other valued recommendation exists.
This is a highly deliberate issue-solving procedure wherein conclusions can be derived simply as

2
INDEPENDENT DECISION MAKING IN NURSING
per real or more specifically perceived need or response from patients. There exist many shreds
of evidence that depict the implications of similar practices (Voldbjerg et al., 2016). Independent
decision making is a vital aspect of nursing that facilitates professional accountability as well.
Additionally, independent decision making underlies strong critical thinking. Such transitional
factor occurs particularly during unanticipated or unforeseen intricate situations, when the
effectiveness of a minor decision, temporarily resolves the issue and positively impacts the lives
and experiences of many patients pertaining to health care. For a novice nurse, other than
delivering health care oriented services taking a prospective decision autonomously also exerts
its impact on certain managerial functionalities pertaining to clinical reasoning. Superior health-
related outcomes greatly rely on timely intervention and appropriate decision-making. It also
aids patients to acquire a thorough knowledge regarding their medical treatment and sometimes
insurance coverage as well.
Transitional factor affects nursing with evidence (How)
Nowadays, the advent of modern technology and globalisation has brought a significant change
in nursing practices and patient care. Decision making involves a complex process in which
nurses have to take an important decision. As part of the individual decision-making process, a
nurse has to decide what the issue is, what kind of information need to be acquired, how to
address the problem in an efficient manner and so on. In critical care areas, nurses have to make
a number of crucial decisions (Johansen & O'brien, 2016). Independent decision making is
considered as extremely crucial in nursing practices because it has a significant impact on patient
care. Critical care nurses have to confront a number of situations where they need to take
decisions independently in order to save the precious lives of the patients.
Once, while working at the Royal Children's Hospital in Australia as an intern, I had witnessed
an incident where the senior nurse had to take an important decision. A child was suffering from
malaria and had a very temperature. The doctor was away for a while. The temperature could not
be controlled by using normal medications prescribed by the doctor. My senior colleague had to
take a strong decision to inject the child with such an antibiotic that might be life-threatening for
children if the basic precautions are not followed. But she had no other alternative but to inject
the child with that antibiotic to control the temperature of the child. From this incident, I have
come to know the importance of decision making.

3
INDEPENDENT DECISION MAKING IN NURSING
Several factors associated with individual making encompass past experience, age, cognitive
biases, and individual differences and so on. These factors need to be addressed in an efficient
manner in order to create positive outcomes for nursing and patient care. Past experience has a
significant impact on making individual decisions in future (Ellis, 2019). A nursing professional
needs to avoid past mistakes while making the decision for the future. Cognitive biases suggest
thinking patterns depending on generalizations and observations that may cause significant
memory errors, faulty logic, and inaccurate judgments and so on. In order to make an effective
decision, it is necessary for a nursing practitioner to overcome cognitive biases. Cognitive biases
can be addressed by using a number of approaches such as relational impact, rational analysis,
and outsider perspectives and so on (Shaban, 2015). Although these practices are time-
consuming, they are considered effective to provide positive results for nursing and patient care.

4
INDEPENDENT DECISION MAKING IN NURSING
Reference list:
Aktaş, Y. Y., & Karabulut, N. (2016). A survey on Turkish nursing students' perception of the
clinical learning environment and its association with academic motivation and clinical
decision making. Nurse education today, 36, 124-128.
Bucknall, T. K., Forbes, H., Phillips, N. M., Hewitt, N. A., Cooper, S., Bogossian, F., &
First2Act Investigators. (2016). An analysis of nursing students’ decision‐making in
teams during simulations of acute patient deterioration. Journal of advanced
nursing, 72(10), 2482-2494.
Ellis, P. (2019). Evidence-based practice in nursing. Learning Matters.
Johansen, M. L., & O'brien, J. L. (2016, January). Decision making in nursing practice: a
concept analysis. In Nursing forum (Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 40-48).
Shaban, R. (2015). Theories of clinical judgment and decision-making: A review of the
theoretical literature. Australasian Journal of Paramedicine, 3(1).
Voldbjerg, S. L., Grønkjær, M., Sørensen, E. E., & Hall, E. O. (2016). Newly graduated nurses’
use of knowledge sources: a meta‐ethnography. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(8),
1751-1765.