Table 1.

The concept definition of uncertainty

No	Authors	Disciplines	Definition
1.	Sheer and Cline (1995)	Public	Lack of information for decision-making: A state of lack of confidence or uncertainty about something that is not completely decided, nor is it certain or fixed. This condition also means doubting something.
2.	Toma et al. (2012)	Economy	In unpredictable conditions, the probability of outcomes is near zero.
3.	Wakeham (2015)	Risk-economic	An epistemic state at the limits of knowledge included a subjective phenomenological experience of cognitive and emotional.
4.	Knight (2013)	Economy	A result of conventional thinking, the very fast development of the world refers to things that are not known and cannot be quantified or measured.
5.	Milliken (1987)	Management-economics	Related to the problem of perception, to the unknown effects/results of an action, the unknown response from a particular environment.
6.	Funtowicz and Ravetz (1990)	Management	The situation of inadequate information: inexactness, unreliability, and bordering ignorance.
7.	Brashers (2001)	Communication	Unpredictable situation based on individual appraisal, associated with inconsistency, and/or unavailability or lack of information, providing too many choices or alternatives to unexpected outcomes.
8.	Bar-Anan et al. (2009)	Psychology	An unavoidable feature of the unpredictable world or chaotic condition refers to psychological states or phenomenological experiences.
9.	Bammer and Smithson (2012)	Psychology	Subjective experience is motivated by personality, emotions, cognitions, and decision-making problems. The main center is a lack of understanding and bias of cognitive and heuristics.
10.	Holm et al. (2013)	Psychology	Uncertainty is documented in various settings and is closely associated with impaired physical and mental health.
11.	Kasper et al. (2008)	Psycho-Oncology	Subjective experience is a person’s cognitive experience – a mental state rather than an objective world aspect. A lack of knowledge of some aspect of reality entails a subjective awareness of a lack of information, a type of “metacognition”-knowledge about knowing.
12.	Han et al. (2011)	Medicine	Subjective perceptions of ignorance, which patients and healthcare professionals experience in diverse ways and to differing degrees, inspire action and evoke psychological responses.
13.	Wright et al. (2009)	Medicine	A cognitive stressor, or a doubtful perspective of a situation, evolves and arises when disease-related consequences are unpredictable, and there is a dearth of information about the disease’s severity and prognosis.
14.	Mishel (1988)	Nursing	Inability to determine the meaning of events related to disease. A cognitive condition occurs when a person does not have an adequate structure or category of an event due to insufficient cues, and the decision-maker is unable to give a definitive value to an object or event and/or accurately predict consequences.
15.	McCormick (2002)	Nursing	A major component of illness understanding that will influence psychosocial adaptation and illness outcomes
16.	Penrod (2001)	Nursing	A patient’s and a family member’s perceived inability to assign outcomes probability is related to the period when they are uncertain about the results of a procedure or disease process.
17.	Dolbeault et al. (2011)	Nursing	A feeling of loss of control, ambiguity, a lack of clarity of information, and a dread of the unknown, has a relationship with family stress.
18.	Mullins et al. (2012)	Nursing	The interaction of objectives disease events and parent’s subjective assessments of probable consequences, and associated with psychological distress in parents. A major predictor of adjustment/adaptation outcomes.
19.	Cohen (1993)	Nursing	Variations in scale, intensity, and significance range from broad existential issues of life and death to the insignificance of probabilities.
20.	Kerr and Haas (2014)	Nursing	A main source of stress that affects the entire family altering family relations and quality of life.