Abstract

This Concept Analysis according to Walker & Avant (1995) studies the concept of uncertainty in the nursing context. It consists of four parts where uncertainty in general have been encircled in a semantic analysis (part one) and a qualitative content analysis consisting of an questionnaire, distributed to the staff members at one nursing and medicine institution, with an open question about the meaning of uncertainty (part two). The third part is a literature study of the nursing context to find out how uncertainty is described (part three). Part four is the actual concept analysis based on the three first parts.

Uncertainty in the nursing context is an individual conscious experience witch is changeable and impressionable. It is chained together with its antecendents and consequences. The uncertainty has to be conscious and people’s experiences are individual. In the changeability for example there is a difference in degree from being nearly certain to a total uncertainty and positive/negative. Uncertainty can be experienced positively and negatively at the same time for example in the diagnostic phase where there still is a possibility that nothing is wrong, and at the same time a possibility to have been affected of a serious illness with arduous treatment and a bad prognosis. The impressionability includes at one hand the person’s own ability to influence his/hers experience of uncertainty through out different strategies and at the other hand professional support to manage the uncertainty.

Antecendents of uncertainty is threat of disease, disease and risk of relapse. The consequences that are caused by uncertainty can be individual and social. The consequences are also affected by a row of factors that causes uncertainty, type of uncertainty, influencing factors with negative or positive connections.

The concept is complex and in covering its attributes, the characteristics of these attributes will be described in a quite general way. This also includes earlier performed concept analysis independent of the method for analysis, where no method itself succeeds to cover the entirety but highlights different characteristics. In this study a clearer picture has been achieved in the literature study, where uncertainty in the nursing context is encircled. Four main themes emerged: Causes of uncertainty, Type of uncertainty, Influencing factors of uncertainty and Strategies to handle uncertainty. They are in themselves divided into subgroups exemplified through previous research studies. The complexity can also bee demonstrated in the long list of synonyms in the semantic analysis. In the second part themes emerge that in several cases can be associated with the literature.

The impressionability and the possibility to experience uncertainty that are simultaneously positive and negative in their attributes are the main findings of this concept analysis and its meaning in the nursing context has been developed in comparison to earlier definitions.

An applicability of this study may be to highlight the patient living with uncertainty in nursing through seminars in nursing education.

Further research should bee addressed to develop several strategies for professional support to patients living with uncertainty in specific interventions adjusted for example to different diagnosis or patients with different type of needs.