Intuition is expected to be most appropriate for highly complex tasks. Many decisions in nursing practice are highly complex, and expert nursing care, including resolution of ethical dilemmas and predictions based on inadequate or ambiguous data, requires applications of intuitive processes (Rew & Barrow 2007). Benner and Tanner (1987) acknowledge the role of nursing expertise and advance that intuition is based on an accumulation of data that result in the ability to recognise patterns among various cases. Experienced clinicians can identify relevant information and quickly detect subtle changes or unanticipated patient response to a treatment (Effken 2001). Intuitive awareness is a powerful aspect of some nurses’ decision making and may spark an analytical process that involves a conscious search to obtain data to validate a change in patient status. Even before objective evidence is available, nurses can use intuition to anticipate changes in patients’ conditions, potentially improving the quality of care and patient outcomes (Rew 1988). When used in conjunction with traditional analytical approaches, intuition may help to enhance patient care (Ruth-Sahd & Hendy 2005).
Intuitive aspects of decision making exist across all levels of expertise (King & Appleton 1997). King and Clark (2002) contend that intuitive aspects of nursing decision making begin early in one’s professional career. As a nurse evolves from novice to expert and as the amount of nursing experience increases, use of intuition expands (Polge 1995). Clearly, the ability to make solid clinical judgements involves a complex process using both domain-specific knowledge and general decision-making processes (Botti & Reeve 2003).