Enabling care: working through obscurity and uncertainty a basic social process used in selected acute care settings.

Using grounded theory methodology this study explored the process that nurses used to determine, deliver, and communicate patient care in acute care hospital settings and to assess whether or not this was congruent with the nursing process structure (O'Connell, 1998). Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews, participant field observations and in-depth audits of patient records. Textual data were managed using NUD*IST and analysed using the constant comparative method. The findings of this study revealed a number of factors that hindered nurses from using the nursing process in its current form. Instead, nurses used a basic social process termed: Enabling Care: Working through obscurity and uncertainty. This paper describes a basic social process used in selected acute care settings and discusses its implications for nursing practice. An understanding of this process will assist the profession to critique some nursing theories and to construct ideas of nursing practice based on current clinical realities.