nurses’ clinical decision-making models in the care of older adults: a cross-sectional study

Clinical decision-making is referred to as a correct judgment based on knowledge and cognitive skills. it has an effective role in providing safe and effective nursing care. often these decision-making skills are based on critical thinking and evidence-based practice. therefore, due to the importance of the present issue, this study aimed to assess the nurses’ clinical decision-making models in the care of older adults. this cross-sectional study was conducted on 384 nurses working in the teaching hospitals of gorgan university of medical sciences in 2021. data was collected by the standard questionnaire of clinical decision-making model. pearson’s correlation coefficient test was used to evaluate the relationship between clinical decision making and study variables. also, mann–whitney u test was used to evaluate the difference between clinical decision making and study variables. the mean age and work experience of the participants were 32.2 (sd=1.5) and 9.1 (sd=1.7) years, respectively. the mean score of clinical decision-making among the nurses was 70.74 (sd=4.54). most of the clinical decision-making models in nurses were found to be intuitive (75.5%). there was not a significant relationship between clinical decision-making model and the variables of age (p=0.47), work experience (p=0.16), and average working hours per month (p=0.93). also, there was not a significant difference between the decision-making model and the variables of gender (p=0.6) and marital status (p=0.54). considering the high level of clinical decision-making, it can be argued that correct decision-making makes the patient’s recovery faster and reduces the length of hospital stay. the advantages of correct decision-making include reducing treatment costs and lowering environmental stress and contamination with hospital infections.