reflective writing in nursing gibbs

reflective writing in nursing gibbs

The Importance of Reflective Writing in Nursing

1. Introduction

Reflective writing can help you to improve your analytical skills because it requires you to express what you think, and more significantly, how and why you think that way. In addition, writing about your thoughts provides a pattern of revisiting and analysing them to bring about a conscious awareness of who you are and what you are learning. This awareness allows you to become more autonomous in your learning, as you understand how you learn best. You may then take these skills of self-analysis and self-reflection into professional life. When faced with a difficult clinical decision, reviewing an incident or episode in a way which uncovers learning in your actions and the contextual factors which influenced you, can improve the quality of your clinical judgements and help avoid making the same mistakes again. This is crucial to continuing professional development to improve client care. By reflecting on the knowledge you gain and integrating that knowledge with a broader understanding of nursing as a professional practice, you can increase your awareness of the complex nature of the work and become a true nursing professional.

Reflective writing is a rich resource of how we each make sense of our lives. It is a way of thinking more clearly and deeply about our experiences in order to learn from them. There are many different types of writing we do and certainly not all writing is regarded as reflective. But how often do we allow ourselves to reflect – either in writing or thinking – on what we do? Usually we do this only when something goes wrong, or more often when we feel under threat or stressed. Then we reflect in an effort to understand, to change for the better, or to make sense of our situation. And this is why reflective writing is being increasingly included in any form of professional or clinical education.

2. Benefits of Reflective Writing in Nursing

It is also an effective way of making the implicit knowledge of a person more explicit. As it is knowledge and judgment that comes from experience rather than a know-what. This cannot be learned from a textbook and it is a treasure of the trade for the professional nurse. By expressing these thoughts and comparing situations at different times, a nurse is able to recognize change and development that has occurred through the knowledge. It is also possible to reveal inconsistencies between practice and beliefs.

Another benefit of reflective writing is the promoting of self-awareness. It can unearth thoughts and emotions that were experienced during an event and enable one to recognize this when a similar event reoccurs. This can help to prevent a situation where a nurse may act hastily with their predetermined emotions.

The first is that through reflective writing one can organize their thoughts and examine an event. For example, when receiving a handover and getting an unexpected result, what was it that happened, what actions and thought processes are taken, what are the expectations, and what have been learned from the event and how to apply it next time. Through the use of a reflective model (Johns 1994), a practitioner may also be able to uncover new knowledge or meaning to an event.

Many have underscored the importance of reflective writing in nursing practice. It is not a new idea, quite the opposite actually. It is from the work of Donald Schon in the 1990s who has written that a professional practitioner should possess the ability to reflect in action and reflect on action. It is a practice in which everyday activity and on-the-spot decision making is examined, and is what informs the design of a resolve to problems that emerge. This is paramount in the nursing profession, but it seems due to practical constraints nurses are often finding it difficult to reflect on and in their practice. Reflective writing is claimed to be an effective means of aiding in that process and is an increasingly important tool for practice development. Here are some of the ways in which it is beneficial to a nurse.

3. Steps to Effective Reflective Writing

The first stage of Johns and Freshwater’s model, ‘Preparation’, is an exploratory phase to help the nurse describe the situation, gather information and make sense of it. This preparatory phase of reflection assists the practitioner to identify an issue and decide the course of action. Using reflective writing in this phase can enable the practitioner to make sense of uncertain or complex situations, and to gather and consider information at a later time. This is particularly relevant to complex nursing situations. The nurse may not have time to reflect effectively on an issue during a busy shift, and it may be inconvenient or inappropriate to ponder an issue at length in the workplace. By recording the situation in writing, the nurse can later return to further his/her reflection. The act of writing often assists individuals to clarify their thoughts in situations where they might feel confused. Retrieving the details of a situation is particularly pertinent to nurses learning from practice, as detailed information is needed to identify patterns or to effectively communicate a situation with others. All of these are valuable skills for the reflective nurse, and reflective writing may help to develop them.

In order to engage in effective reflective writing, nurses need to employ certain steps to develop the critical thinking necessary for insightful and thoughtful practice. Johns and Freshwater (2005) classify several stages to guide the reflective process: preparation, incubation, illumination, and evaluation. These stages will now be discussed in turn, followed by a discussion of the contribution of reflective writing to these processes.

4. Examples of Reflective Writing in Nursing

Firstly, we shall consider reflective writing and then briefly discuss strategies for teaching and integrating reflective practices, with particular reference to implementation in a nursing curriculum. During the course of this technical report, the provision and assessment of reflective writing for students within a biology unit will be described and evaluated. In this case, reflective writing is seen as an instrument for student self-assessment and tutor evaluation of constructivist learning achieved through assignment work. To set the scene, it is worth briefly considering what a good biology undergraduate might look like. Eysenck and Keane advocate a model of problem-solving involving 1. Encoding the problem. 2. Inferring a solution. 3. Comparing the inference to what is known. 4. If necessary, revising the problem and searching for new strategies. Apply this to a particular case, the student considers how complex this process might be when learning various biological concepts and skills. Foster and Hmelo-Silver suggest a competent biology student would be an informal scientist who actively thinks about biological problems and learns using inquiry and problem-based learning strategies. As a biology graduate may be expected to have a certain degree of lifelong learning competence and inquiry habits, we can infer that developing these skills should be a fundamental aim of a biology curriculum. Eysenck’s model of problem-solving provides a standard that allows these biology learning skills to be assessed via categorizing a student’s resourceful thinking onto a scale of simple to complex and finding where it is possible to infer cognitive change. Reflective writing can be used as one tool to assess such learning, an example being an assignment where a student is required to explain their problem-solving steps in a case study of clinical reasoning. Cognitive changes may include a better understanding of certain scientific concepts by comparing them to the case and learning a better method of diagnosing when one health condition is thought to be related to problems in various body systems.

5. Conclusion

Reflective writing is increasingly considered as a critical component of professional practice in nursing. The act of reflection does not need to be formal in nature. Simply jotting down the things one has done in a day can already be an act of reflection. However, formal reflection is the one that is most commonly used in professional practice and often takes the form of a reflective diary. Reflective writing is an intentional and dynamic process that an individual engages in to capture and handle experience, to explore his/her thoughts and emotions about it, and to attempt to make sense of it. It is viewed as an important strategy for health professionals who wish to continue developing throughout their lives. Reflective writing is associated with learning from experience and is viewed as an important strategy for health professionals who wish to continue developing throughout their careers. The aim of this assignment is to discuss the role of the mentor in supporting a nursing student who has failed a module. This will be done in relation to the module and the learning outcomes. Reflection is an important tool for all healthcare practitioners. It can improve our skills and ability to understand the patient as well as a means to develop our personal and professional knowledge. By critically analyzing the incident, I will explore my own understanding of the topic of mentorship which, I feel has been enhanced during the process of writing this assignment.