The clinical judgment experiences of expert public health nurses

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the clinical judgments made by expert public health nurses in order to gain an understanding of how clinical judgments were made. Six expert public health nurses were interviewed individually and in a group. The data for this study were the interview transcripts;Data analysis was inductive, using the constant comparative method, which consisted of unitizing and categorizing the data. Six themes emerged from the data, which served to illuminate and interpret the data. The criteria developed by Lincoln and Guba were used to establish trustworthiness;The findings of the study indicated that: (1) the context of the clinical situation was an important issue for expert public health nurses in making clinical judgments; (2) the process used by expert public health nurses to make judgments was difficult to describe and they used intuitive knowledge to make judgments; (3) expert public health nurses used their past experiences to make clinical judgments in current situations; (4) clinical judgments and the process of making clinical judgments were affected by the relationship the nurse had with the client; (5) experience in making clinical judgments and analyzing the judgments of experts was a valuable way to learn to make clinical judgments; and (6) the respondent\u27s perceptions of the outcomes of clinical judgments were determined by the feedback received from clients or other health professionals