ABSTRACT Background Critical care nursing in Zambia is a new speciality that has adopted traditional nursing documentation and currently uses the Roper, Logan and Tierney's Activities of Daily Living combined with NANDA International (NANDA‐I) criteria. It is a cause for concern that these models are based on different high‐income domains and are not critical care or context‐specific, making integration and application in practice challenging. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a Zambian context‐specific critical care nursing framework. Aims This study aims to explore intensive care nurses' perceptions of the applicability of currently used nursing models and theories and to develop a new Zambian critical care nursing framework based on the principles of Ubuntu. Methods This study will employ a two‐phase, mixed‐methods approach using a participatory cooperative inquiry design. Phase 1 includes a retrospective review of nursing care plan documentation. This will allow for the identification of the current use of nursing models and theories. Phase 1 utilises documentary data analysis to identify key nursing documentation. Descriptive statistics and, where possible, significant difference will be used to determine patterns and trends. Phase 2 will utilise the findings from phase 1 as the basis for semi‐structured focus groups with intensive care nurses within the study site. Total population sampling will be used; therefore, all nurses will be invited to participate. Framework analysis will be used to analyse the qualitative data sets. Conclusion The outcomes will illustrate the efficiency and effectiveness of nursing documentation and perceptions of using the current nursing model. The findings will be combined to develop a critical care nursing framework based on Ubuntu, which will then be piloted. Relevance to Clinical Practice This study has been designed in response to recognition that critical care nursing practice needs to context specific to enhance the nursing care provided.
Carter et al. (2026) studied this question.