Chaos Theory in Nursing

        When applied to nursing, Chaos Theory is connected to every facet of nursing research, theory, and practice. The whole purpose behind nursing research is to gain knowledge and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of nursing practice, thus, forming nursing theories to improve nursing care and help negate the ill effects of Chaos Theory. Since Chaos Theory is based on the unknown variables, the goal of nursing research is to study any possible variables that could negatively impact nursing care, and form plans and policies to remove those variables from the equation. According to McGuire, scientists in the late twentieth century were challenged by Chaos Theory, and it did not fit into their predetermined notions of predictability (1999). If they understood it better, most nurses would find that Chaos Theory fits very well into their understanding of the nursing practice on a daily basis. Most nurses can give examples of patient outcomes that did not fit the status quo or just didn’t seem right, no matter what the scientific and medical data said would happen to the patient. In medicine and nursing, there is never a chance of knowing, one hundred percent, the outcome of a procedure or practice. The truth is that the smallest changes or unseen circumstances can drastically alter the results in unforeseen ways. This inability to predict accurate results one hundred percent of the time is the essence of Chaos Theory.

       In our practice, Chaos Theory is possibly used every day in some way. In general, Chaos Theory looks at the unknown variables. In a physician's office, we access any incoming patient by not only what they say (subjective data) but also by their body language, physical assessment, and lab work (objective data). We also are continually reassessing the patient as the appointment goes in order to continually assess for possible diagnoses and change ideas of diagnoses as the appointment goes on. In a matter of speaking, this is a direct application of chaos theory in that we try to take into account that there are always unknown variables, and we try to keep that idea at all times.