Background & Aim: Nurses’ clinical judgment is an evolving complex concept. In order to understand the concept, clarification is needed. This study aimed to conduct the concept analysis of clinical judgment in nursing .

  Methods & Materials: Based on the Rodgers’s evolutionary method, evolving concept of clinical judgment in nursing was analyzed. Literature was retrieved from scientific databases during 1980 to 2013. Based on the inclusion criteria, 42 articles, three books and one dissertation were analyzed using thematic analysis method . 

  Results: The results showed that clinical judgment in nursing was a complicated process with attributes including intention, observation, data collection and information process, interpretation, prioritization and inference. Antecedents included knowledge, experience, evidences, clinical reasoning, intuition, critical thinking; and consequences included nursing diagnosis and clinical decision making .

  Conclusion: Clinical judgment in nursing is a critical thinking process, situational based and beyond observation and assessment. This concept analysis could distinct the transposition concept of clinical judgment and other related concepts. The results of this study would help to develop theories and clinical judgment measurement instruments in practice, research and educational settings .