NURSES JUDGMENT AS THEY CARE FOR PERSONS WHO EXHIBIT IMPAIRED JUDGMENT - A PHENOMENONOLOGICAL STUDY

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover the process by which psychiatric nurses make judgments as they care for persons w ho exhibit impaired judgment. Data were collected from six experienced psychiatric nurses in a private room and were audiotaped. These data were analyzed using Spiegelberg's (1976) phenomenological method. The data yielded an overarching theme: all the nurses presented judgment a s a personal responsibility. Within this overarching theme, were four major themes: (1) closeness to the clinical data; (2) critical reflect ion; (3) respect for one's knowledge and ignorance; and (4) existentia l nature of judgment. Categories within theme (1) closeness to the cli nical data were nurse as knower and focus on the patient; within theme (2), critical reflection were experience and understanding; within th eme (3), respect for one's knowledge and ignorance were self-conscious ness and expectation of self; and within theme (4), existential nature of judgment were alone facing the unknown and ''Eureka! I've got it!' ' Essentially, judgment occurred privately within the mind of the nurs e, making it both the creation and responsibility of the nurse. For th ese nurses judgment was the pivotal event in nursing inquiry beginning in the desire to know, proceeding through understanding and presentat ion of a nursing problem and then determining the question, ''What is it?'' in a ''Eureka!'' moment. With this experience of ''I've got it!' ' the nurse crossed from the unknown to the known. Judgment which bega n in the desire to know began again with a new question. Copyright (C) 1995 by W.B. Saunders Company