Nursing expertise and information structure influence medical decision making

This study examined the influence of nursing expertise and information structure on certainty of diagnostic decision making. Two hundred and sixteen nurse (experts), student nurse (novices), and non-nurse (naive) participants read patient scenarios either high in information structure (consistent diagnostic information) or low in information structure (inconsistent diagnostic information) and rated their certainty about what the potential diagnosis might be. Results indicated that participants with pre-existing cognitive schemata for processing patient information (experts and novices) were more certain about decision making with structured information than they were about unstructured information, but structure of information did not influence certainty ratings of naive participants.