Study Protocol for the Development of an African Framework for Critical Care Nursing based on Ubuntu using Co-operative Inquiry: Decolonising Care

Background: Critical care nursing in Zambia is a new speciality that has adopted traditional nursing documentation, and currently use the Roper, Logan and Tierney Activities of Daily Living combined with NANDA International (NANDA-I) criteria. It is a cause for concern these models are based on different high-income domains, and are not critical care or context specific, making integration and application in practice challenging. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a Zambian context specific critical care nursing framework. Aims and Objectives: This study aims to explore intensive care nurses’ perceptions of the applicability of currently used nursing models and theories and to develop a new Zambian critical care nursing framework based on the principles of Ubuntu. Methods: A participatory co-operative inquiry, mixed method study with two phases. Phase 1 includes a retrospective review of nursing care plan documentation. This will allow for the identification of the current use of nursing models and theories. Phase 2 will utilise the findings from phase 1 as the basis for a series of focus groups with intensive care nurses. Phase 1 utilises documentary data analysis to identify key nursing documentation over a 2-month period. Descriptive statistics and where possible significant difference will be used to determine patterns and trends. Phase 2 comprises of semi-structured focus groups with intensive care nurses within the study site. Total population sampling will be used; therefore, all nurses will be invited to participate. Framework analysis will be used to analyse the qualitative datasets using. Conclusion: The outcomes will illustrate the efficiency and effectiveness of nursing documentation and perceptions of using the current nursing model. The findings will be combined to develop a critical care nursing framework based on Ubuntu, which will then be piloted.