Intuitive Decision Making as the Culmination of Continuing Education: A Theoretical Framework

The ability to make sound clinical decisions is the cornerstone of excellent nursing care and the goal of continuing nurse educators. Research has revealed that expert nurses make fewer errors in decision making; it also has shown differences in the decision-making process of expert nurses, compared with novice nurses. Specifically, expert nurses report a greater use of intuitive decision making. Accordingly, an important goal for continuing nurse educators is the development of intuitive decision making by nurses. This article proposes a pattern-based, constructivist educational framework that synthesizes Benner's novice to expert (NTE) theory, Damascio's somatic marker hypothesis (SMH), and Hammond's cognitive continuum theory (CCT). This framework provides a foundation for continuing education that fosters the development of intuitive decision making in nurses. Although this framework needs further empirical validation, it is theoretically sound and applicable to all areas of nursing, and its implementation could help reduce errors in decision making by nurses, thus improving patient outcomes.