Examining the difficulties experienced by nurses in the nursing process applications

Aim: this research was carried out descriptively to identify the difficulties experienced by nurses in nursing process applications. methods: research was carried out between june 2013 and june 2014. the sampling of research comprised of 113 nurses working in a community hospital located at the northern region of izmir province (affiliated with t.r. ministry of health). during collection of research data the “individual identification form” and the “form for assessment of difficulties experienced during nursing process” were used. results: the mean age of nurses that participated in research is 35.23 ± 6.40 years and their mean tenure in this profession is 13.19 ± 7.21 years. 60.2 % of the nurses felt themselves efficient related to the nursing process, 55.6 % had hard time mostly when applying nursing process to the quickly discharging patients; during nursing process applications 57.5 % of them experienced hard time due to personnel shortage and 41.1 % suggested that the number of nurses must be increased. it was detected that 62.2 % of nurses have always or frequently had hard time in collecting “sufficient data”, 65.1 % in differentiating “nursing diagnose from medical diagnose”, 70.7 % in writing the “planned nursing interventions”, 63.2 % in practicing and registering the “planned interventions” and 61.4 % in evaluation of “the results of nursing intervention”. conclusion: nurses were found to have experienced difficulties at all stages of nursing process applications.