Critical incidents, crucial issues: insights into the working lives of registered nurses

The critical incident technique has been used in nursing in a number of ways: in developing understanding of the nursing role, as a quality assurance strategy, as an assessment and evaluation tool, and as an aid in the fostering of reflective practice. This article describes how the technique, used as a theoretical course assessment for a group of students studying long ENB courses, could be used to shed light upon issues regarded as crucial in the daily working lives of this group of registered nurses, and upon the reflective skills which they were able to employ.