Facilitating decision-making in young people.

A focus group discussion was used to investigate the ways in which children's nurses see themselves facilitating young people in decision making. This group of eight nurses expressed the view that young people should be involved in decisions about care and that in order for children's nurses to facilitate their decision-making, certain types of knowledge are needed to inform their interventions. Eraut's six categories of professional knowledge (Eraut 1994) were found to be useful in structuring their views. The nurses felt that they facilitated decision-making by knowing the individual and the context, by providing individuals with age-appropriate information and by taking account of ethical, legal and professional dimensions.