Autor(es): Cunha, Lara Daniela Matos ; Santos, Márcia Noélia Pestana dos ; Lomba, Maria de Lurdes Lopes de Freitas ; Santos, Margarida Reis
Data: 2024
Origem: Repositório Científico da Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra
Assunto(s): Clinical Reasoning; Uncertainty
Background: Healthcare uncertainty is a pervasive and important problem that arises in a wide variety of circumstances, and affects both providers and recipients of healthcare. The strategies that nurses use to manage it have not been systematically described. Objectives: The objectives of this study are: to describe uncertainty management strategies in clinical reasoning of nurses in recovery rooms, and to analyze those strategies in light of the Integrative Framework of Uncertainty Management taxonomy. Methods: Qualitative descriptive study. Fourteen nurses from a recovery room of a central Portuguese hospital were selected by convenience sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis was performed using MAXQDA. Results: Ignorance-focused strategies, uncertainty-focused strategies, response-focused strategies, and person-focused strategies were the themes radicated from the major theme 'uncertainty management strategies in the clinical reasoning of nurses in the recovery room'. The strategies centered on ignorance and uncertainty have a curative goal and the strategies centered on response and the person have a palliative goal. Conclusion: Nurses employ a variety of uncertainty management strategies focused on different goals (cure or palliation), and their tolerance for uncertainty evolves with their abilities to cope with uncertainty. More research is needed to understand and improve the management of healthcare uncertainty by nurses.
