Critical care nurses' efforts to pass along knowledge
Subtitle: a moral endeavour.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 302
Description: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the work of critical care nurses to pass along knowledge of patients to other members of the health care team. Of particular interest were the following questions: which aspects of their understanding of patients do critical care nurses pass along to other health care team members; how is knowledge passed along; and for what purposes or to what ends is knowledge passed along? Data collection for this descriptive, interpretive study occurred in two intensive care units in a tertiary care hospital in Canada. Ten registered nurses, two males and eight females, volunteered to take part in the study. Participants were observed as they provided other health care providers with knowledge of the patients in their care and interviewed regarding this aspect of their work. Interpretation of the data involved multiple readings of the generated text, and a constant back and forth between parts of the text and the whole text. One theme, filling out the picture, was identified from the data. In order to fill out the picture, nurses passed along knowledge of the patient's current status, knowledge of changes in patient responses over time, knowledge the nurses believed others cared about, knowledge of interventions that worked, and knowledge of the patient as a person and member of a family. Knowledge was conveyed in different ways: as threads of data, by linking together information from the patient's body systems, through thinking out loud, by pointing, and by building a case. It was clear that the work of critical care nurses to pass along to others knowledge of the patients in their care was a moral endeavour, as evidenced by nurses' persistent and directed efforts, arising from their sense of obligation to the patient, to achieve the particular end of the well-being of patients and family members. Proximity to patients and to other health care team members was essential for this moral work.
Notes: Adviser:  Gail Donner.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-10, Section: B, page: 5070.