Abstract
M.Cur.
From experience and observation of decision-making in intensive care units, it has been
observed that nurses in intensive care units make clinical decisions, which they can
justified, and other decisions which they cannot justified. The last type of clinical decisions are sometimes referred to as gut-feelings or intuition by nurses in intensive care units. It seem further from the observation in respect to clinical decision-making, that clinical decision-making based on intuition are effective, and contribute to better and more complete problemsolving in intensive care units.
From the afore-mentioned problemstatement the following two questions were asked in
this study, namely:
* What is intuition?
* What is the role of intuition in clinical decision-making by the nurse in intensive care
units?
The objectives of the study is, namely in phase one of the study to analyse the concept
intuition, and in phase two to explore and describe the role if intuition in clinical
decision-making by the nurse in intensive care units. a Philosophical analytical research
design were implemented in order to reach these two objectives. The concept intuition
was analyse by the method of concept-analysis in order to describe the characteristics of
intuition, and to describe a theoretical definition for the study with regards to these
characteristics. In order to answer the second objective, a literature study on decisionmaking was undertake. The goal here-of was to describe the role of intuition in clinical decision-making by the nurse in intensive care units.