"Nurse intuition" doesn't sound scientific, but it could play a key role in critical-care outcomes, according to a small study published in DovePress, New Zealand.

Nurses have incorporated the idea of basing care decisions on their intuition into nursing discipline for decades, according to the authors, but educational institutions have largely ignored the concept in recent years.

The researchers conducted a descriptive phenomenological study, interviewing 12 nurses who had at least three years of work experience in critical care units of hospitals affiliated with Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in Iran. In their analysis of the interviews, researchers identified three themes:

Patient condition:
Nurses found that their intuition came into play when they felt a patient's clinical signs did not match what their gut was telling them about the patient's actual condition. Similarly, they found their intuition triggered by changes in patient behavior. Nearly all of the nurses surveyed said that their intuition had informed some aspect of their care with regards to a patient's outcome.