THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE NURSES' SUPPORTIVE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS AS A CARING STRATEGY FOR PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION AND PRACTICE.
Contributors: University of Rochester.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 102
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Education.
Description: Support is viewed as a dominant caring concept, yet little is known about how nurses decide to provide support. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the decision making process that nurses, employed in hospitals, used when they support patients and families. A secondary purpose of this study was to confirm the validity of the items in the Nursing Support Scale (NSS). Using grounded theory's comparative content methodology, the data analyzed from 43 nurse interviews explicated a multi-phased decision making process. These phases were gathering information, connecting with the patient and/or family, implementing supportive actions, evaluating the attainment of goals, and sharing with another care provider. The phases overlapped with each other and repeated themselves over a variety of time sequences. Inductive reasoning was used by the nurses to acquire and interpret cues and form goals. Three motivating factors greatly influenced the amount of the support that was given. These factors were trust of self and the patient, tension, and involvement. These three factors dynamically interacted with each other All supportive behaviors were coded from the interviews and after each interview the nurse was asked to rate each item on the Nursing Support Scale (NSS) for their level of agreement that the item represented a supportive activity. A majority of the items on the NSS were found to be valid. The findings suggested that four of the items should be reworded and several new items should be added. These findings will lead to a revision of the NSS.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-09, Section: A, page: 3341.

Thesis (ED.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER, 1993.

School code: 0188.