How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills in Nursing Practice

Have you ever thought about how important critical thinking skills are for nurses?

But before discussing how to develop critical thinking skills in nursing which is a dire requirement, let’s define what critical thinking is all about for nurses.

Definition of Critical Thinking for Nurses

As a nurse what would you do when you face a problem or a critical situation in the hospital?

You will start thinking about the best solution and then ways or methods to implement that solution, hence solving the problem.

Furthermore, without stopping at providing the solutions, you also follow up to find out if the specific solution was effective and how you can further improve on it.

So, critical thinking is a very essential part of nursing thought.

Example of Critical Thinking in Nursing

To understand the above definition better, let us look at an example.

As a nurse, you will have to make quick decisions in an emergency room. That is to say when there are too many patients but limited staff to render service, you should make a decision on which patient should be treated first.

At this juncture, you will tend to rely on your nursing training to measure vital signs and level of consciousness. Apart from this, you should also use your critical thinking to evaluate the consequences of delaying treatment for each patient.

Hope this sounds logical to you.

Importantly, during circumstances of life and death situations it’s important you use critical thinking capabilities to analyze the situation and arrive at a workable solution.

Doesn’t doing so relate to the concept of also using creative thinking skills in nursing?

How Can You Develop Critical Thinking Skills?

Having known how important developing critical thinking is for a nurse, you should now know how to improve critical thinking skills.

7 Approaches to Develop Effective Critical Thinking Skills

Let’s look at 7 ways by which you can improve your critical thinking skills.

Use Case-Based Approach

In this method, let’s say you have to deal with a particular patient’s problem.

To start with, you will automatically tend to refer to your academic learning materials or rewind back what you learned during your nursing training to come up with a solution for that problem.

Secondly, you also need to know what issues the particular patient raises while briefing about the illness.

So, you compare the patient’s symptoms with your academic learning and materials and arrive at a solution.

You Need to Develop A Questioning Mind

As a nurse, sometimes you would tend to be too humble and just accept and execute the tasks assigned to you.

But doing so doesn’t make you think out of the box.

On the other hand, you need to raise possible questions about the given scenario you need to handle. This will open up new and effective avenues to solve the problem.

Rely On Evidence-Based Research

There would always exist a proven solution for a number of nursing treatment scenarios. It is good to go through those research materials and confirm that the course of action you intend to implement on the patient will bring about a fair amount of success.

Practice Critical Thinking Exercises

Most probably, you would have come across reading or going through materials that present a lot of case scenarios that expect you to give a solution to the problem.

Go through such a repository of scenarios and exercise your brain to find solutions.

Go for Using the Nursing Process

Always incline towards a process-oriented approach where you will chalk out the best ways to move forward with your work. This is a kind of streamlining of your work.

You will first identify all the factors that are vital in performing your tasks and then execute them in the order of priority.

Doing so helps you to avoid mistakes and also keep track of your progress in implementing the required tasks.

Seek for Clarity In Any Given Documentation

In this approach, you critically analyze the information given about any scenario.

To do this, you use your previous learning or your existing knowledge to validate the material or content presented to you.

Develop A Good Rapport and Collaborate With Your Colleagues

In simple terms, talk and discuss each scenario your colleagues faced and how they dealt with or solved them.

This is a kind of brainstorming session.

Collaborating with your colleagues will foster the exchange of ideas, better learning, and best practices.

The role of nursing is really critical in providing better patient care and this is done best only through critical thinking and analysis.