Nurses understand that information possesses several dimensions of value, including as a commodity, a means of education, a means to influence, and a means of negotiating and understanding the world. Legal and socioeconomic interests, as well as funding opportunities, research agendas, and other vested interests, influence information production, protections, privacy, and dissemination.
Nurses encounter the value of information by grappling with concepts such as publishing practices, access to information, the commodification of personal information, and intellectual property laws. Nurses respect others’ intellectual property when properly attributing sources and avoiding plagiarism. Nurses also respect the value of patient information, maintaining patient confidentiality and protecting their health information. Nursing professionals work to combat the sources of information privilege (status, power, and affiliation variables, as well as physical, social, and cognitive/intellectual barriers) and pursue information equity through questioning their own assumptions, creating and sharing resources for patients and the general public good, adopting justice-focused approaches, and adopting a professional value system that perceives and opposes injustice.
Entry level nurses recognize that while some information is openly available, some is inaccessible because of paywalls and required subscriptions. They also recognize that health information increases in value when the reading levels, language, and graphics are accessible to patients and their families. They explore information in a variety of formats and source types on the path toward developing their fluency in trustworthy sources and information communication tools. They take steps to ethically document those sources through citation and attribution.
As creators, documentors, consumers, and disseminators of information, advanced level nurses understand their rights and responsibilities--and those of their patients, patients’ families, study participants, and colleagues--when participating in a community of scholarship and/or a community of practice. As creators of information, they demonstrate respect for the original ideas of others through dedicated citing and attribution efforts. They write or translate complex information into languages and formats, such as reading levels, knowing that knowledge has more value when patients understand it. They understand that while value may be wielded by powerful interests in ways that marginalize certain voices, it may also be leveraged by individuals and organizations to effect change, build trust, and for civic, economic, social, scientific/medical, or personal gains. They also understand that the individual is responsible for making deliberate and informed choices about when to comply with, when to contest, and how to convey to colleagues, patients (and patient’s families) current legal and socioeconomic practices concerning the value of information.
Evidence of the Frame in Action
Peer-reviewed journals provide nurses with more credible information on which to base their decisions than they would find using, for example, social media platforms. However, an exploration of social media platforms might provide the medical community with a sense of any misinformation they need to dispel when briefing the public.
The use of visual information communication tools (including comic books, perspective scales and palettes, diagrams, charts, and images), information source types (open access/open web, subscription based, and at different reading levels), and competent, caring verbal communication strategies enable nurses to articulate complex health information to patients, which facilitates deliberate and informed choices, builds trust, and accommodates for varying literacy levels among patients.
Nurses protect the privacy of patients and their families through demonstrable understanding of professional behavior standards, HIPAA protections, the role of technology in regard to patient information access and privacy, and what constitutes identifiable patient information.
Nurse scholars engaged in research or serving on institutional review boards (IRBs) understand and think critically about human subjects research, special population protections, and additional information access and protection issues, such as data security and retention.
Nursing professionals understand that access to Internet and scholarly sources, as well as the competencies involved in accessing and understanding information sources, is a form of information privilege that, in turn, impacts patient information literacy as well.
A nurse scholar considers publication choices for a completed study and decides to publish a preprint for faster and more open dissemination before submitting the manuscript to a journal.
Competencies
Nurses who are developing their information literacy abilities:
identify issues of access or lack of access to information sources [Remembering];
explain how and why some individuals or groups of individuals may be underrepresented or systematically marginalized within the systems that produce and disseminate information [Understanding];
recognize that intellectual property is a legal and social construct that varies by culture [Understanding];
employ proper attribution and citation practices to credit the original ideas of others [Applying];
examine how the commodification of their personal information and online interactions affects the information they receive and the information they produce or disseminate online [Analyzing];
assess various factors motivating and constraining where and how information is published and disseminated [Evaluating];
evaluate their choices regarding their online actions within full awareness of issues related to privacy and the commodification of personal information [Evaluating];
discuss the purpose and distinguishing characteristics of copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain [Creating];
