Australian nurses' personal constructs about effective nurses--a repertory grid approach.

Repertory grids were completed by nurses (N = 56) enrolled in university courses to elicit the personal constructs they used to characterize nurses as effective and to elicit the extent to which participants believed themselves to be effective nurses. The personal constructs of "good knowledge base," "good interpersonal and communication skills," were ranked, respectively, as the four most frequently elicited constructs associated with nurses. "Good knowledge base," "caring, compassionate," "good clinical skills," and "good decision-making and problem-solving skills" were ranked, respectively, as the four most frequently elicited constructs associated with "effective" nurses. Cluster analysis of individual repertory grids showed that there was a significant difference between self-perceptions of participants as effective nurses and the nurses they would like to become.