Clinical Decision Making: A Comparison Study between Greece and Slovakia

Background: Clinical decisions are a nurses' daily clinical practice skill that needs to be constantly evolving in order to provide quality patient care. Purpose: To investigate and compare the clinical decisions made by nurses in Greece and Slovakia. Materials and Methods: Q-methodology was used and eight modified scenarios were given to the nursing staff. Using power analysis, a total of 100 nurses that worked in public hospitals in Greece (nG = 50) and Slovakia (nS = 50) successfully completed the study. Results: In the scenarios with more medical interventions, Greek nurses showed higher scores in the scenarios of tachycardia, bradycardia and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In contrast, Slovak nurses scored higher individual scores in all four scenarios (anxiety - difficulty sleeping –dyspnea - vomiting) with more nursing interventions (p<0.05). Conclusions: Greek nurses overall had higher individual scores in the scenarios with more medical interventions, probably due to the medically-centered philosophy of nurses, the lack of protocols and autonomy to provide patient care.