How Nurses Apply Patterns of Knowing in Clinical Practice: A Grounded Theory Study

Area of Science:

• Nursing Science
• Clinical Practice
• Knowledge Management in Healthcare

Background:

• Effective nursing care necessitates comprehensive knowledge acquisition.
• Established patterns aid nurses in developing essential clinical expertise.
• Understanding how nurses utilize knowledge patterns is crucial for improving patient outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and describe the central variable in nurses' application of knowing patterns within clinical settings.
• To explore the dynamics of how nurses integrate different ways of knowing during patient care.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative study employing a grounded theory approach.
• Data collected via semi-structured interviews with 19 nurses and 8 observation sessions.
• Constant comparison analysis used for data interpretation.

Main Results:

• Nurses demonstrated three primary ways of applying knowing patterns: cohesion, domination, and elimination.
• The core variable influencing this process was identified as the cohesion of knowing patterns.
• Flexibility within the clinical domain significantly impacts the application of knowing patterns.

Conclusions:

• The application of knowing patterns by nurses is intrinsically linked to their flexibility in clinical practice.
• Findings highlight the adaptable nature of nursing knowledge integration in real-world healthcare environments.