Critical Thinking Nursing Process and Activites of Daily Living

An attitude and rational reasoning process that involves intellectual skills that is disciplined, self directed and provides rational thinking leading to appropriate decisions and judgements.

Rational & Reasonable-based on reasons vs prejudice, preferences,self interst, biases, think for yourself make your own decisions having reviewed the information

Reflection-Intergration of past experinces into the present situations, which allows for exploration of alternatives and make positive changes.

Cognitive Thinking & Attitudes-to think critically you must have cognitve thinking skills and attutudes.  Without a critical attidue it is easy to use thinking skill to justify narrow mindedness.

Creative Thinking- Breaking out of established patters of thinking and viewing from new directions and perspectives, particulary when tradition interventions are not affective.  Challenge the status quo and ask why.

Knowledge- Application of core knowledge to each clinical situation encountered.

• Willingness to analyse self
• Tendency to observe
• Willingness of consider issues before forming conclusions opinions- take a broad look.
• Readiness to connect and relate
• Determined to become well informed
• Application of knowledge and principals to specific situations
• Aware of limitations in knowledge base
• Readiness to analyse and evaluate ideas.
• Willingness ot change your ideas if there is a better way of doing it.

T-Total recall remembering facts and locations, wrote learning.

H - Habits allows you to do thing without having to figure out a new method each time.

I - Inquiry examining and questioning the issues.

N - New ideas and creativity individual thinking.

K - Know about your individual thinking style.

To provdie quality care and accountabilty for this care nurses need to develop critical thinking skills that will provide them with the expertise in flexible, individualised, situation specific problem solving.

Facilitate an understanding of one's own perception of the situation

Thinks analytically and reflectively about what to do in a particularsituation eg analyse the subjective and objective data.

Examination of underlying values and assumptions

Understand basis of decision making and beliefs eg knowledge of bones.

Examine thinking processes for errors and biases

Action eg put on a sling.

Involvement repsonsiblity to effect change.

Listen carefully - choose an environment where you can hear

Critically evaluate your perceptions - do not make assumptions about people based on your prejudices

Decode and encode verbal and non-verbal messages - make sure that you and the patient understand each other

Be able to convey the message verbally so that people understand what you are saying.

A systematic creative approach used to identify , prevent and treat actual or potential health problems/issues in order to promote wellness.  Consists of four phases:

A - Assessment getting the facts and identifying the problem

P - Planning what are you going to do about it

I - Implementation doing it

E - Evaluation did it work

Objective - Facts, free of bias or prejudice caused by personal feelings.

Subjective - Based on somebody's  opinions or feelings rather than facts or evidence.

In order to achieve an holistic (whole) view of the patient it is necessary to consider:

• Physical factors
• Psychological factors
• Social factors

We look at the whole patient the emotional, social, psychological and physical factors to achieve a holistic view of a patient.

Broken into five stages, how much care we need  depends on our age and the stage of life we are at.

• Infancy
• Childhood
• Adolescence
• Adulthood
• Old Age

• Maintaining a safe environment
• Communication
• Breathing
• Eating and drinking
• Elimination
• Person cleansing and dressing
• Control of body temperature
• Mobilising
• Working and Playing
• Expressing Sexuality
• Sleeping
• Dying