A conceptual analysis of facilitation to improve clinical outcomes in critical care units

Objectives: Effective facilitation is crucial to improve critical care outcomes in life-threatening conditions through improved teamwork, caring, decision-making, and problem-solving. The meaning of facilitation remains unprecise in a critical care context despite its frequent usage in nursing education and clinical practice. This study aimed to report a thorough concept analysis to clarify the meaning of facilitation in the critical care context by formulating attributes, antecedents, and consequences and providing model cases related to facilitation. Methods: This analysis was performed by searching online sources published from 1999 to 2023. EBSCOhost, CINAHL, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases were searched using online search engines. The analysis also included the manual search of books, thesaurus and dictionaries that showed relevance to facilitation. Walker and Avant's eight-step approach was applied to explore and analyze the meaning of facilitation in critical care units. Results: A total of 68 articles were included in the analysis of this study. Eleven attributes, six antecedents, and seven consequences related to facilitation were formulated. The attributes included dynamic, interactive processes, creating a positive environment, mobilizing resources, assistance, student-centered, shared goals, collaboration, engagement, participation, and feedback. Antecedents were facilitator qualities, motivation, a positive learning environment, student-facilitator relationship, time availability, and specified learning outcomes. The consequences of facilitation were identified as follows: change, professional development, competency, quality development, increased job satisfaction, staff retention, and self-confidence. Conclusions: The findings from the analysis indicated that effective facilitation results in nurses and critical care staff developing competency, caring, critical thinking, and independence. Therefore, clinical outcomes in critical care environments are improved through teamwork, decision-making, and problem-solving in life-threatening situations.