Effects of Clinical Reasoning Prompts on Nursing Students' Clinical Judgment for a Patient Experiencing Respiratory Distress.

PURPOSE To test the effects of clinical reasoning prompts on students' clinical judgment of a written case study. METHODS An experimental pre- and posttest study with second semester nursing students (N = 163). FINDINGS The intervention was insufficient to significantly improve clinical judgment. Students identified that the prompts would help them "narrow… down the problem" and "slow… the decision-making process" to improve analysis. The most accurate patient problem was identified by 28% of students in pretest and 35% in posttest. CONCLUSIONS This study provides evidence of variations in nursing students' clinical judgment and students' desire to use decision-making algorithms. NURSING IMPLICATIONS Nurse educators should provide students with additional education and practice to identify and solve these types of problems.