Back to Search
Start Over
Physical assessment skills practised by critical care nurses: A cross‐sectional study.
- Source :
- Nursing in Critical Care; Jan2023, Vol. 28 Issue 1, p109-119, 11p
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- Background: Physical assessment skills are essential to clinical decision‐making in nursing as they help nurses to identify and respond to patients' deterioration. Nurses develop confidence and can detect any out‐of‐range parameters in diagnosing and treating patients. Prior studies surveyed 120 skills but did not explicitly assess critical care. Aim: To determine the range of physical assessment skills practised by critical care nurses and their adoption factors. Study design: This study uses a cross‐sectional survey design. A self‐administered questionnaire evaluating 40 physical assessment skills was conducted with 133 staff nurses (response rate: 96.4%) in three critical care units at a Malaysian government hospital between November 2019 and January 2020. Results: Most nurses applied 32 (80%) skills during every working shift, involving the vital signs and all body systems except the gastrointestinal system. Five skills (12.5%) were occasionally applied, while three skills (7.5%) were rarely applied or not part of most nurses' clinical practice. About 20% of the nurses did not routinely check the respiration rate. Medical and surgical intensive care unit nurses (U = 1129, p <.001) and nurses who had served over 10 years (H (2) = 9.60, p =.008) used more physical assessment skills than others. Nurses felt that continuing nursing education, participating in relevant courses and implementing standardised forms to record physical assessments would improve the application of such skills. Conclusion: Clinical practice in these critical care settings challenges the assertion that physical assessment is vital to critical care nursing roles. Concerns highlighted by the nurses should be addressed by nursing management so that the application of physical assessment skills can be enhanced, especially in critical care settings. Relevance to Clinical Practice: The findings indicated that physical assessment skills in critical care need to be improved. Education and training should emphasise these skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- PHYSICAL diagnosis
KRUSKAL-Wallis Test
NONPARAMETRIC statistics
NURSING
NURSES' attitudes
CROSS-sectional method
MANN Whitney U Test
CRITICAL care nurses
CONTINUING education
DESCRIPTIVE statistics
CRITICAL care medicine
QUESTIONNAIRES
SCALE analysis (Psychology)
DATA analysis software
NURSING assessment
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 13621017
- Volume :
- 28
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Nursing in Critical Care
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 161587881
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/nicc.12748