The Evaluation of Nurse,s Clinical Decision Making in Intensive Care Unit at the Teaching Hospitals of Mashhad

Unstable condition of clinical situation of patients in Intensive Care Unit requires made nurses be competent in decision making. Despite the importance of clinical decision making in nursing, yet this is not the appropriate place in the profession. This study was conducted to evaluate the clinical decision making of nurses in Intensive Care Units of educational hospitals in Mashhad.
This descriptive study was conducted through stratified random on 233 nurses employed in educational hospitals of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. PDAQ questionnaire was used to collect data. Data analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics (t -test, correlation and ANOVA) in SPSS V.16.
The results showed that nurses participation was in the average level at all phases of clinical decision making consist of identifying the problem (33.1±10.7), present of the solutions (34.1±10.3) and implement the solution (32.1±9.7). Nurses were acquired the highest score in the phase of present and evaluation of alternative solutions and lowest score in the phase of implement the solution.
According to results of this study, nurses’ participation was in the average level at all phases of clinical decision making. It seems that nursing education programs are not effective to enhance clinical decision making skills; therefore, the results of this study can be used to improve clinical decision making in nursing education and continuing education programs.