Definition of Critical Thinking:

-an intentional higher level reasoning process that is intellectually delineated by one's worldview, knowledge, and experience with skills, attitudes, and standards as a guide for rational judgment and action.

What is critical thinking in nurses?

--it uses clinical reasoning and clinical decision making to practice safe and effective nursing care to improve clinical systems and decrease errors in clinical judgments.

What are the 10 affective components of critical thinking in nursing?

--confidence, contextual perspective, creativity, flexibility, inquisitiveness, intellectual integrity, intuition, open-mindedness, perseverance, and reflection.

NLN Definition of Critical Thinking in Nursing:

--practice is a discipline specific, reflective reasoning process that guides a nurse in generating, implementing, and evaluating approaches for dealing with client care and professional concerns.

Different ways nurses use critical thinking skills:

--Nurses use knowledge from other subjects and fields.

--Nurses deal with change in stressful environments.

--Nurses make important decisions.

Creativity:

--is thinking that results in the development of new ideas and products.

--in problem solving and decision making, it is the ability to develop and implement new and better solutions for health care outcomes.

7 Skills of Critical Thinking in Nursing:

--analyzing, applying standards, discriminating, information seeking, logical reasoning, predicting, and transforming knowledge.

Techniques in Critical Thinking:

1. Critical Analysis

2. Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

3. Making valid inferences

4. Differentiating facts from opinions

5. Evaluating the credebility of information sources

6. Clarifying concepts

7. Recognizing assumptions

What is Critical Analysis?

--is the application of a set of questions to a particular situation or idea to determine essential information and ideas and discard superfluous information and ideas.

What is Socratic questioning?

--is a technique one can use to look beneath the surface, recognize and examine assumptions, search for inconsistencies, examine multiple points of view and differentiate what one knows from what one merely believes.

--nurses use this in listening to an end-of-shift report, reviewing a history or progress notes, planning care, or discussing a client's care with colleagues.

What is Inductive reasoning?

--generalizations are formed from a set of facts or observations.

--moves from specific examples (premises) to a generalized conclusion.

--example: nurse who observes a client who has dry skin, poor turgor, sunken eyes, and dark amber urine who is otherwise determined to be dehydrated (premise) concludes that the presence of those signs indicate that other clients are dehydrated.

What is deductive reasoning?

--a reasoning from the general premise to the specific conclusion.

--example:  nurse that start with a premise that all children love peanut butter sandwiches.  So if the nurse is trying to encourage a child to eat, then the nurse can offer the child a peanut butter sandwich.

Attitudes that Foster Critical Thinking:

1. Independence

2. Fair Mindedness

3. Insight to Egocentricity

4. Intellectual Humility

5. Intellectual Courage to Challenge the Status Quo and Rituals

6. Integrity

7. Perseverance

8. Confidence

9. Curiosity

What is nursing process?

--it is a systemic, rational method of planning and providing individualized nursing care.

What are the phases of nursing process?

--assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing, and evaluating.

What is problem solving?

--it is when the nurse obtains information that clarifies the nature of the problem and suggests possible solutions.  The nurse carefully evaluates the possible solutions and chooses the best one to implement.

Common approaches to problem solving:

1. Trial and error--a number of approaches are tried until a solution is found.

2. Intuition--understanding or learning of things without conscious use of reasoning, also known as sixth sense, hunch,instinct, feeling, or suspicion.

3. Research process--formalized, logical, systematic approach.

Decision making:

--choosing the best actions to meet the desired goals.

--examples: prioritizing and delegating

Concept Mapping:

--is a technique that uses a graphic depiction of nonlinear and linear relationships to represent critical thinking.

--also known as mind mapping, concept maps are context dependent and can be used to develop analytical skills.

Four types of concept maps:

1. Hierarchial

2. Spider

3. Flowchart

4. Systems