Reflective Practice

Introduction

Graduate registered nurses are the future leading force within the nursing profession. It is vital that newly graduated nurses’ transition from student nurse to registered nurse in a supportive and clinically safe manner, providing a holistic approach within patient care, as well as the nurses’ own physiological longevity. Newly graduated nurses may be unequipped with coping mechanisms, posing serious issues once faced with complex patient care scenarios, overwhelming workloads and an unpredictable workplace environment which may induce emotional distress (Bolden et al., 2011). The concept of reflective practice as a tool for nurses will be explored, which once applied can act as a supportive framework, as well as a continuous

The use of a model when reflecting is vital as it is easy for the health practitioner to overlook their experience without making any sense of it. Making use of a model enables the nurse to have a meaningful structure in the process of their reflection, it enables for an identified output or the opinion of one’s overall performance which makes way for an action plan; vital in the process of reflective practice (Stonehouse, 2015). According to Stonehouse (2015), there are many diverse models of reflection, yet the most popular and perhaps successful reflective models firstly include Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle, a cycle which focuses on experience, reflection, conceptualisation and planning and secondly Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle, which includes a series of questions which encourages the nurse to thoroughly examine an event, inciting critical thought.

Kolb’s (1984) learning cycle is an experiential learning cycle which consists of four diverse stages in relation to the skill of reflection which the nurse can enter at any point. These four stages include the following; ‘concrete experience’ where the nurse has an experience, ‘reflective observation’ where the nurse reviews and reflects on the experience,

Reflective practice is seen as a means that enables the nurse to ask the right questions, at the right time within a clinical setting and to also recognise slight changes of a deteriorating patient (Picard & Henneman, 2007; Barbour, 2013). Graduate nurses who utilize reflective practice have the prospective to decrease or limit the stress within their professional lives (Palmer, et al., 1994; Barbour, 2013). Bjarnason (2009), (as cited in Barbour, 2013) states that refection can promote qualities such as integrity, balance, and morality within a graduates nursing career, and has also been proven to encourage the development of intuition, an essential quality in an expert nurse (Benner, 1994; Hannigan, 2001; Barbour,