  In this article we consider two spin$-1/2$ chains described, respectively, by
the thermodynamic limit of the $XY$ model with the usual two site interaction,
and an extension of this model (without taking the thermodynamics limit),
called $XYT$, were a three site interaction term is presented. To investigate
the critical behaviour of such systems we employ tools from quantum information
theory. Specifically, we show that the local quantum uncertainty, a quantity
introduced in order to quantify the minimum quantum share of the variance of a
local measurement, can be used to indicate quantum phase transitions presented
by these models at zero temperature. Due to the connection of this quantity
with the quantum Fisher information, the results presented here may be relevant
for quantum metrology and quantum thermodynamics.
