The factors affecting the critical thinking skills among nursing students – an integrative literature review

Aim. Review and analysis of available articles focused on factors affecting development of nursing students critical thinking.

Material and methods. Integrative review of articles published between 2011 and 2021, available in the electronic databases PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO. Searching was based on keywords “critical thinking”, “nursing”, “nursing care”, “nursing education” which were connected by Boolean logic operators “and” as well as “or”.

Results. There are several factors significant to advancement of critical thinking. Prevalent teaching methods, which promote development of critical thinking, constitute active learning strategies, concept mapping, simulation, problem-based learning, case study and learning methods based on evidence. Moreover, cultural and individual factors like empathy, emotional intelligence and caring behaviour show a significant relationship with critical thinking.

Conclusions. Critical thinking represents an important meta-competence for nurses. Critical thinking contributes to adequate gathering of the information about patient, selection of those and formulating accurate diagnoses, progression of problem-solving skills and making decisions, improves communication with the patient. Analysis of relevant literature made it possible to indicate factors affecting critical thinking.