Suggestions for overcoming the barriers to critical thinking in nursing

Nurses strive to provide the best quality of care to their patients in a stressful and constantly changing environment. Critical thinking (CT) could help nurses provide better quality of care to their patients. However, studies have shown that nurses either have low levels of CT or underutilize it during clinical practice. A possible explanation could be that nurses experience barriers during the development and/or utilization of CT. Since CT can be cultivated during university, nurse educators could utilize methods that improve CT. However, nurse educators do not sufficiently develop the CT of their students, since they usually rely on teacher-centered methods and not active learning methods. On the other hand, during clinical practice nurses cope with several barriers that inhibit their ability to use CT, such as: lack of teamwork, high levels of stress, time constraints, and understaffing. All these barriers decrease the utilization of CT and the quality of care that nurses provide. The present commentary suggests a simple strategy that could be used by educators and assist graduate nurses overcome the barriers to utilize CT during clinical practice. This strategy consists of three distinct components, namely: individual, interdisciplinary, and administrative. Each component could be used individually to improve the CT of nurses depending on the available resources and facilities. Nevertheless, educators by improving the CT of nurses could assist them in providing better quality of care.