Critical thinking: the use of intuition in making clinical nursing judgments

Making clinical nursing judgements is central to the practice of nursing, and critical thinking skills are essential to making clinical judgments. Qualitative studies have shown that the use of intuition in making clinical nursing judgments is an important part of the critical thinking process. This descriptive correlational study examines the relationships between the use of intuition in clinical judgment-making and characteristics of the nurse, such as level of nursing proficiency and years of clinical experience. Findings support Benner's (1984) model of skill acquisition as well as prior findings of studies on the use of intuition in clinical nursing practice. Thus, as the level of nursing proficiency increases from beginner to expert and as the amount of clinical experience increases, the use of intuition to make clinical nursing judgments increases significantly.