Chapter 09: Think Like a Nurse: Essential Thinking Skills for Professional Nurses

Chapter 09: Think Like a Nurse: Essential Thinking Skills for Professional Nurses

Complete Chapter Questions With Answers

Sample Questions Are Posted Below

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. A faculty member explains to a class of nursing students that the primary goal of critical thinking in clinical practice is to

ANS:  C

Critical thinking in nursing is used to make sound clinical judgments and, after considering all plausible alternatives, to determine course of action most likely to be effective.

Critical thinking aids the patient, whether that patient (client) is a person, a family, or a group. It is used to meet the patient’s needs, not to compete with other health care professionals.

Critical thinking may be used when theorists examine the components of a theory in progress, but this is not the primary goal.

Judging the value of actions, or evaluation, is part of the critical thinking process, but this is not the goal.

DIF:    Cognitive Level: Understand            REF:   174                TOP:   Nursing Process: Planning

MSC:  NCLEX Client Needs: Safe and Effective Care Environment: Management of Care

2. The nursing student knows that critical thinking is

ANS:  C

The goals of critical thinking are unique to nursing, but the process can be applied to many disciplines and professions.

Critical thinking is a skill requiring certain knowledge and practice. Although some people may be naturally better at it than others, all nurses can and should learn to use critical thinking in practice.

The goals of critical thinking are unique to nursing, but the process can be applied to many disciplines and professions.

All nurses need to use critical thinking skills in every position.

DIF:    Cognitive Level: Remember            REF:   176                TOP:   Nursing Process: Planning

MSC:  NCLEX Client Needs: Safe and Effective Care Environment: Management of Care

3. A nurse studying critical thinking theories can generalize the process as

ANS:  A

Looking across theories and definitions of critical thinking, they all have in common the ability to reflect on data and choose actions. Reflection also considers evaluating the result of the actions to determine whether they were effective.

Although critiquing ideas and establishing goal-oriented care could be considered as part of a generalized statement of critical thinking, this is not broad enough without the reflection and evaluation.

Critical thinking would most likely be used to create care paths derived from best-care literature, but this is not a generalized statement covering all definitions and theories of critical thinking.

Critical thinking is used when engaging in the nursing process, but this is too narrow in focus to capture the essence of critical thinking definitions and theories. Critical thinking is not synonymous with the nursing process.

DIF:    Cognitive Level: Synthesize             TOP:   Nursing Process: Planning

MSC:  NCLEX Client Needs: Safe and Effective Care Environment: Management of Care

4. A student nurse asks how the nursing process is different from critical thinking. The best reply by the faculty member is that the nursing process is

ANS:  A

The nursing process is the tool nurses use to operationalize their critical thinking judgments about patient care.

Saying that the nursing process is merely the way nurses articulate patient care needs does not differentiate between the two concepts, nor does it show any relationship between them.

Critical thinking can be used in many different ways, including systematically and without the use of the nursing process.

Nursing process and critical thinking, although related, are not synonymous.

DIF:    Cognitive Level: Understand            REF:   179                TOP:   Nursing Process: Planning

MSC:  NCLEX Client Needs: Safe and Effective Care Environment: Management of Care