6.3: Critical Thinking I

Critical thinking helps decision-making and allows nurses to recognize barriers to success and find solutions to possible issues. It helps to brainstorm and implement ideas to achieve goals. Critical thinking helps acknowledge and state workflow inefficiencies while improving management techniques. Nurses understand the value of critical thinking and look for fellow nurses with critical thinking skills to upgrade their professional standards. Critical thinking can advance a nurse's career with several benefits, including promoting teamwork, resolving conflict, leadership training, and time-saving techniques. Nurses need time, patience, and practice to develop critical thinking skills. The following six steps are vital to every problem a nurse faces in practicing critical thinking:

• Find the real cause of the problem.
• Collect data regarding the issue.
• Apply critical thinking skills to solve the problem.
• Confirm the significance of the collected data.
• Conclude the problem statement.
• Publish or communicate the result.

Consider asking a colleague or a friend to assess skills and provide unbiased feedback about strengths and weaknesses. The feedback method can improve critical thinking skills and pave the path for advancement in the career. In addition, thinking critically includes applying the following standards: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, logic, significance, and fairness.

Critical thinking is used by nurses in clinical situations to reason systematically and logically while remaining open to inquiry and self-reflection. This improves patient outcomes.

Interpretation skills help the nurse to identify the problem by orderly collecting and clarifying patient data.

Analyzing helps nurses recognize the potential cause of the problem.

Inference aids nurses in examining the significance of the patient's findings and the relationship between the results.

Evaluation helps nurses to determine the results of nursing interventions objectively.

Explanation guides nurses in drawing conclusions that are supported by evidence-based practice.

Self-regulation helps nurses to evaluate their performance and the methods used to address the identified problems.

In addition, critical thinking can be applied at three levels: basic, complex, and commitment.

At the basic level, the nurse believes that experts have the correct answers to all problems.

At the complex level, nurses gradually trust their decisions more and depend less on experts to find solutions.

At the commitment level, nurses will anticipate the need to make decisions independently and accept responsibility for their actions.