Abstract:
Background: Clinical decision-making is essential to the future of professional nursing practice.
Qualified Nurses should be able to use decision-making skills to provide safe and effective
nursing care. Clinical decision making is a process that nurses use to make judgments regarding
patient care and management. The dynamic and uncertain nature of health care environment
requires nurses to be competent decision-makers in order to respond to clients' needs.
Objective: - The main aim of this study is to assess clinical decision making practice and
associated factors among nurses working in Jimma university medical center south west
Ethiopia.
Method: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted among 251 nurses working at
Jimma university medical center 2017. Data were gathered by using structured and semistructured questionnaire and in-depth interview guide for quantitative and qualitative
respectively. Descriptive statistics was used to describe study population, binary logistic
regression and multivariable analysis was used to analyze data. A p-value less than 0.25 were
used to select variables as candidate for multivariate logistic analysis. A p-value less than 0.05
were considered to declare statistical significance. Adjusted odds ratio and 95% CI were reported
for interpretation.
Results: In this study clinical decision making practice of nurses are about 53.4%. Those self
confident nurses perform clinical decision making practice 3.482 times more likely than those of
not confident nurses. Being supported nurses perform clinical decision making practice 2.878
times more likely than those of not supported nurses. Those nurses not perceives continuous
education as facilitating factor is 79% less likely make clinical decision than those of perceiving
as facilitating factor.
Conclusion and recommendation: The study finding indicated that, clinical decision making
practice of nurses is about 53.4%. Continuous education, being self confidence and being
supported were significant predictors of clinical decision making practice. More extensive
evaluation of the clinical decision making in different practice settings is therefore needed in
order to explore clinical decision making practice.
