THE CHALLENGES OF NEWLY GRADUATED NURSES FOR GAINING COMPETENCE IN CLINICAL JUDGMENT: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Clinical judgment is a complex phenomenon which can cause challenges for
newly graduated nurses in the decision making process. The aim of this study was to describe the
experiences of newly graduated nurses’ challenges on the road to gain competence in clinical
judgment.
Materials & Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using the purposive sampling method and
was based on the data saturation principle. Data were collected from 30 newly graduated nurses who
were working in teaching hospitals in four northwest provinces of Iran during the two past years. Data
was collected by means of in-depth semi-structured interviews. Qualitative content analysis was used
to analyze the data.
Results: The main challenges for the newly graduated nurses to gain competence in clinical judgment
were four categories including: ineffective assessments , weakly interacting , skill related problems
and unreliable decisions, and also eight sub-categories including unstructured observations ,
perfunctory exploration , communication problems , misapprehension , unfamiliarity with the skills ,
lack of conversance , decision making errors and conflict in the selection.
Conclusion: Achieving to the clinical judgment skills is a professional competence for newly
graduated nurses. The familiarity with these challenges can help educational and executive managers
to plan new programs for mitigating these challenges and to prevent undesirable consequences.