Digital nursing practice theory: A scoping review and thematic analysis

Abstract

Aims: This scoping review aims to identify existing theories associated with digital nursing practice to add a lens on the future use of digital technologies by nurses.

Design: A review of theories related to digital technology in nursing practice was conducted following the framework described by Arksey and O'Malley. All published literature until 12th May 2022 was included.

Data sources: Seven databases were utilized including Medline, Scopus, CINAHL, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, BNI and Web of Science. A Google Scholar search was also performed.

Review methods: The search terms included (nurs* AND [digital OR technol* OR e-health or ehealth or digital health or telemedicine or telehealth] AND theory).

Results: The database searches yielded 282 citations. After screening, nine articles were included in the review. These described eight distinct nursing theories.

Conclusion: The focuses of the theories included the role of technology in society and nursing. How technology should be developed to support nursing practice, health consumers' use of nursing informatics, the use of technology as an expression of caring and the preservation of humanness and the relationship between human persons and non-human actants and the creation of nursing technologies as caring in addition to existing technologies. Three themes were identified including the role of technology as an agent within the patient environment; nurse interactions with technology to achieve 'knowing' of patients and the necessity of technological competence among nurses. Then, using Actor Network Theory (ANT), a zoom-out lens to map the concepts was proposed (The Lens for Digital Nursing [LDN]). This study is the first to add a new theoretical lens on digital nursing.

Impact: This study provides the first synthesis of key concepts of nursing theories to add a theoretical lens to digital nursing practice. This can be used in a functional capacity to zoom-in different entities. No patient or public contribution was made in this study due to it being an early scoping study on a currently understudied area of nursing theory.

Keywords: AI; competency; digital; framework; nursing; practice; robots; technology; telemedicine; theory.