Nurs. Rep., Volume 6, Issue 1 (December 2016) – 2 articles

The research approach of grounded theory (henceforth as GT) is one of the common qualitative methodology in social sciences and lately in Nursing which has constantly been confronted with ambiguities regarding its application and particularly its operationalization. It is attempted in this article to offer the true nature, application and measures for a more suitable application of this approach by reviewing its relevant literature in different disciplines. This article is the result of reviewing different databases through 1990 to 2011 and also referring to the main texts in GT research. At the end, it must be mentioned that although the GT research approach is an appealing method, especially in Nursing and enjoys a lot of rigor with regard to dealing with the favorite phenomena of the nurses, the researcher’s expectations must be realistic about it. In addition, alongside clarification, which is a social process among a group of individuals, it can be used in presenting model and instrumentation by following the principles and also for providing examination and caring manuals and the required interventions by using the qualitative outcome analysis in order to operationalize it. Full article

Intuition in clinical practice is the ability to experience the elements of a clinical situation as a whole, and to solve a problem or reach a decision with limited concrete information. Benner theorized that the expert nurse acts on intuition, but that he/she also deals with some ambiguities. However, there is a lack of studies about intuitive nursing in the critical care arena, where more critically ill patients are admitted. So, this study was conducted to explore the features of the intuitive nurse in critical care practice. In a descriptive-phenomenological study, twelve nurses employed in critical care units of the hospitals affiliated to Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences were recruited to the study, as purposive, a semi-structured interview was administered to them, then written down verbatim. The data was managed by MAXQDA 10 software (VERBI GmbH, Berlin, Germany) and analyzed as qualitative through the seven-stage approach of Colaizzi. Of the 12 nurses who participated in the study, seven (58.3%) were female and married, 88.3% (10 people) had a Bachelor of Nursing and the mean and standard deviations of the participants’ age, job experience and critical care experience were 36.66±7.01, 13.75±6.82 and 7.66±3.36 years, respectively. From the qualitative analysis of the data, we extracted three main themes, including proficiency, connection and benevolence, and ten sub-themes. The intuitive nurses were substantially proficient in terms of knowledge, skill and experience, and relationships to patients. They desired to help the patients based on their consciences. Full article