An Exploration of Nursing Students' Clinical Decision-Making Process.

PURPOSE

This study was carried out descriptively and retrospectively with the purpose of determining nursing diagnoses used by intern students in their clinical practice.

METHODS

The study data were obtained by checking the care plans of the internship files of 248 students studying at a nursing faculty.

FINDINGS

The students determined 77 different nursing diagnoses in 13 domains of North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA)-I taxonomy II. The total number of nursing diagnosis used in the care plans was 1,469.

CONCLUSION

Most of the diagnoses determined by the students were in the "safety/ protection" domain; however, they determined no diagnoses in the "life principles" domain.