Nurses' critical reflections of working in unit practice councils-A qualitative interview study

This study aimed to describe nurses' experiences of working as members of unit practice councils.

Health care organisations worldwide want personnel to participate in decision-making. Unit practice councils promote unit-level decision-making over unit-specific issues. Despite extensive research on shared decision-making, few studies have examined the experiences of nurses serving as members of these councils.

A descriptive qualitative study design was used with semi-structured interviews of 16 nurses in two clinics of a Finnish university hospital. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.

The analysis revealed two themes describing nurses' experiences as members of unit practice councils: (i) inchoate unit practice councils with insufficient allocated working time and (ii) partial empowerment of nurses through the organisation's evolving Magnet project.

Unit practice councils in the studied organisations are inchoate and unable to effectively advance shared decision-making or support nurses' professional autonomy. In the future, the councils require constant support from all leadership levels of the organisation.

Sharing decision-making power could be a win-win situation where nurse leaders relinquishing power over certain matters gain time to immerse in wider issues. While acknowledging different organisational roles, there is room for trusting each other's professionality and respecting autonomous work.