Prelicensure Nursing Students Developing Clinical Judgment Through Emotional Intelligence: A Qualitative Interpretive Descriptive Study

Abstract

Clinical judgment is an essential skill required for nurses to provide safe, quality patient care. Nurse educators must develop effective teaching strategies to assist prelicensure nursing students in developing clinical judgment skills. The objective of this study was to determine if a teaching strategy focused on the affective domain of learning and emotional intelligence could be an effective strategy to promote the development of clinical judgment. A guest speaker was invited to the classroom and provided her “lived experience” with multiple sclerosis, which provided a storytelling method of learning. An interpretive descriptive qualitative study was conducted with twenty-one prelicensure diploma registered nursing students enrolled in a medical-surgical nursing course (in the United States of America). Tanner’s Clinical Judgment Model (noticing, interpreting, responding, and reflecting) was used as the theoretical framework to guide data analysis. Four themes emerged from the data: 1) attentive listening (noticing), 2) understanding the patient’s experience (interpreting), 3) compassionate and empathetic care (responding), and 4) treat the patient as a person, not as a disease (reflecting). Results indicated that storytelling via “lived experiences” is an effective teaching strategy which promotes learning through the affective domain and emotional intelligence while also assisting students in developing clinical judgment. Clinical judgment skills are essential for the graduate nurse transitioning to practice.