Establishing an international network on nurses' clinical reasoning

A recent review of the relevant literature indicates that different approaches to the exploration of nurses' clinical reasoning are being adopted in North America, Australia and the United Kingdom. These differing approaches, which tend to cluster chronologically and which include decision analysis, information processing and skills acquisition theory and their limitations will be outlined; it will be argued that it is through their conflation that nurses' collective understanding of nurses' clinical reasoning is deepened. The author is attempting to develop an international network of nurse scholars interested in clinical reasoning with the aim of achieving this. The purposes of this network will be to facilitate international collaboration to expedite both the growth of knowledge related to nurses' clinical reasoning and the development of programs of international comparative research related to it. The setting up of this network and progress to date is described.