EMPIRICAL REFERENTS
The final step in the analysis is to determme the empincal
referents for tbe cnbcal attnbutes According to Walker &
Avant (1988) empincal referents are used to 'diagnose' tbe
existence of tbe concept Owing to tbe mulbfactonal
nature and complexity of pabent participabon witbin tbe
context of nursmg pracbce, empirical referents are difficult
to define Testmg tbe extent to wbicb pabent parbcipabon
occurs witbm tbe context of nursmg practice would be
best done by systemabc observation of a sample of interactions
between tbe pabent and tbe nurse Beside bandovers
offer an excellent opportunity to assess for tbe presence
of patient parbcipation An observer could note wbether
an attempt was made to narrow the mformabon and
knowledge gap between the pabent and the nurse and
whether the nurse had abnegated power and control, and
wbetber the patient had actively parbcipated in the selected
activity, and whether benefit had been acbieved as a
result of the acbvify However, this would be a subjecbve
measure of the presence of the concept as it would depend
on the evaluator's percepbons and, as such, would not be
the most reliable measure