| Analysis |
Analytical skills facilitate:
identifying assumptions, reasons and claims;
evaluating how they interact in the development of arguments;
examining key elements in any situation and determining how they relate to one another;
identifying and observing patterns and details;
and gathering relevant information from speech, documents, signs, tables, charts, graphs and diagrams. |
In clinical practice, nurses perform data analysis based on health indicators, signs and symptoms, including analysis of information on the health history and responses of patients under their care.
Example:
A nurse analyses a patient’s vital signs before deciding whether or not to administer a prescribed medication or requests an evaluation from the medical team. |
| Interpretation |
Interpretive skills facilitate:
comprehending and expressing the meaning of anything e.g., experiences, situations, communication (written messages, verbal and non-verbal exchanges), behaviours, data (graphs, diagrams, maps, charts, memes), events, judgements, conventions, beliefs, rules, procedures, criteria, and social interactions. |
Nurses employ interpretation daily in all aspects of nursing, including the interpretation of signs and symptoms, health problems, test results and quantitative and qualitative data generated in the act of caring.
Example:
A nurse interprets a patient’s signs and symptoms to determine the priority nursing diagnoses to be considered for developing a care plan. |
| Inference |
Inferential skills facilitate:
elaborating conjectures and hypotheses;
predicting the consequences of various options under consideration;
identifying the logical consequences of assumptions;
drawing conclusions from reasons, evidence, observations, experiences, values and beliefs using all forms of analogous, probabilistic, empirical and mathematical reasoning. |
The inference skill is employed when nurses in clinical practice formulate hypotheses in the process of nursing diagnosis and when they observe changes in clinical picture and must infer what may be happening to patients.
Example:
A nurse decides what to do in a given situation in clinical practice by drawing conclusions based on professional experience. For instance, nurses may identify dysphagia in a patient with sequelae of stroke and suggest to the medical team that a nasogastric tube be inserted for feeding. Nurses infer the need for an intervention, which in this case is essential for the proper nutrition of patients. |
| Evaluation |
Evaluative skills facilitate:
assessing the credibility of claims that are made or published;
assessing the quality of people’s reasoning when making arguments or giving explanations;
evaluating the quality of many other important elements of a valid rationale, such as analysis, interpretation, explanation, inference, options, opinions, beliefs, assumptions, proposals and decisions. |
The evaluation skill, like the others, is of fundamental importance in the clinical practice of nursing and is considered a step in the nursing process and a methodological tool that organises and guides nurses’ work. Assessment is employed in all a nurses’ actions to verify patients’ conditions and responses to interventions in the care plan as well as the results achieved.
Example:
A nurse in clinical practice assesses a patient’s responses to a specific implemented care plan to identify its progress and the need to include or exclude interventions to achieve better results. |
| Explanation |
Explanatory skills facilitate:
justifying what one chooses to do or believe by presenting convincing arguments guided by evidence, concepts, methodology, criteria, contextualisation, values, reasons and assumptions. |
The explanation skill is frequently used by nurses in clinical practice to justify providing specific care and in implementing specific interventions. Through explanation, nurses guide their teams and patients towards safe and quality care.
Example:
A nurse must educate a team on the need for special care for a patient and must explain the rationale and purpose of implementing such care to obtain better results and speed up patient recovery. |
| Inductive Reasoning |
Inductive reasoning skills facilitate:
decision-making in contexts of uncertainty. Inductive decisions may be grounded on analogies, case studies, prior experience, statistical analysis, simulations, hypotheses, reliable testimony, experiences, events, recognisable patterns in a set of events, experiences, symptoms and behaviours. Conclusions guided by inductive reasoning may be mistaken, but, although it does not provide certainty, it can provide a solid basis for confidence in conclusions about people and a reasonable basis for action. |
Inductive reasoning based on professional experience informs a nurses’ decision-making when they must take the best possible decision in solving a problem.
Example:
A nurse evaluates a patient and, making a correlation with previous experiences, takes the best decision to solve the problem presented by patients. |
| Deductive Reasoning |
Deductive reasoning skills facilitate:
decision-making in precisely defined contexts in which rules, operating conditions, core beliefs, values, policies, principles, procedures and terminology completely determine the outcome. Deductive validity describes a conclusion that absolutely cannot be false if the initial assumptions or premises are true. Deductive validity leaves no room for uncertainty unless we change the very meaning of our words or the grammar of our language. |
Deductive reasoning is grounded on using facts in evaluating and solving problems. In the application of deductive reasoning, nurses take precise decisions to solve problems.
Example:
A nurse assesses the problem presented by a patient based on facts and scientific criteria for decision-making in clinical practice. |
| Numeracy |
Numeracy skills facilitate:
making judgements based on quantitative information in several contexts;
applying knowledge based on numbers, arithmetic, measures and mathematical techniques in situations that require the interpretation or evaluation of information;
understanding how quantitative information is gathered, manipulated and represented visually (as in graphs, charts, tables and diagrams). |
Quantitative reasoning is frequently employed by nurses in clinical practice when evaluating quantitative data, performing drug dose calculations and determining the number of staff in a clinical unit to provide safe, quality care to patients.
Examples:
A nurse in collaboration with a nursing team calculates the dose of a drug to be administered and consults the guidelines before administration.
A nurse determines an adequate number of professionals for a team that will provide nursing care in an Intensive Care Unit. |
