The Existence of Advocacy among Nurses Within Nursing Documentation in Malaysia: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Nursing documentation is vital to nursing care in hospitals. Literature suggests nursing documentation that contains evidence nursing care which has been planned and implemented have a significant relationship with nurses’ practice, particularly regarding the existence of advocacy. Despite the significance of nursing documentation in nursing practice, no study has been conducted and published on this crucial aspect of nursing practice, particularly in Malaysia. Hence, a qualitative design is utilised to explore how nurses in Malaysia demonstrate the element of advocacy in the context of their nursing documentation. A total of forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with nurses involved in completing the nursing documentation. Thematic analysis was used to identify categories and themes in nurses’ perceptions about the existence of advocacy in their documentation. Findings highlight that the nurses could comprehend and acknowledge the existence of advocacy within their documentation. These findings are likely to suggest to highlight the advocative roles of nursing documentation in nursing practice, besides the significance of education to improve advocacy among nurses in Malaysia.