Nurse's Performance Regarding the Care of Patients with Arrhythmia

Abstract

A cardiac arrhythmia simply defined as variation from the normal heart rate. Recent years have witnessed important advances in our understanding of the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying the development of a variety of cardiac arrhythmias. Aim: Assess the nurse's performance regarding the care of patients with arrhythmia through the following: Assessment of the nurse's knowledge regarding the care of patient with cardiac arrhythmia, Assessment the nurse's practices regarding the care of patient with cardiac arrhythmia and assessment of the nurse's attitude regarding the care of patient with cardiac arrhythmia. Design: A descriptive exploratory study was utilized to meet the aim of this study. Setting: The study was conducted in the coronary care unit CCU at Ain Shams Specialized Hospital, and intensive care unit ICU and coronary care unit CCU at National Heart Institute. Subject: A convenience sample of 91 nurses who are working at two hospitals, Ain shams Specialized Hospital 31 nurses and National Heart Institute 60 nurses who were caring for patients with arrhythmia in the previously mentioned study settings, were included in this study . Tools of the study: Self-administered questionnaire sheet to assess nurse's knowledge, an observation checklist to assess nurse's practice and nurse's attitude scale to assess nurse's attitude. Results: Only 19.78% of them had satisfactory total level of knowledge, 36.30 % of them had satisfactory total level of practice, 37 % of the studied nurses had positive total attitude and 63% of them had negative total attitude toward caring of patient with arrhythmia. Conclusion: The minority of studied nurses had satisfactory level of knowledge, most of nurses had unsatisfactory level of practice and two fifth of the studied nurses had positive attitude and two thirds of them had negative attitude toward caring o