NURSING STUDENTS DECISION-MAKING ABILITY IN URMIA NURSING AND MIDWIFERY SCHOOL IN 2014

The ability of Decision-Making is one of the fundamental features of nursing professional practice, and it influences quality of care more than any other factor. It can be acquired by proper education & clinical experiences. Meanwhile, a lot of nursing graduates can’t demonstrate their Decision-Making skills. This study aimed to determine nursing students’ Decision-Making ability in Urmia School of Nursing and Midwifery. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 220 nursing students in Urmia Medical Sciences University in 2014. Data collecting instrument was a questionnaire (“Analysis of Decision-Making in Nursing”) with 2 parts: demographic characteristics (3 items) and different aspects of Decision-Making in nursing (81 items that classified in 10 scope and rated according to semantic differentiate scale (1 to 7). After entering the data to the SPSS (19) software, data analysis was performed by using descriptive and inferential statistics, as needed. 103 of participants were female (46.8%) and 198 were single (90%). The mean and standard deviation of the age of the subjects was 21.24 ± 1.83. 61.4% of the participants had the moderate Decision-Making ability, and 38.6% of them had high Decision-Making ability. The participants’ clinical decision-making ability in “Creativity” aspects was better than other aspects. The results showed that the Decision-making ability in nursing students was moderate. Therefore, to take the effective steps and to expand the Decision-Making ability in nursing students, it is highly recommended to include relative courses in nursing curriculum.