Abstract

Aim.The purpose of this study was to evaluate nursing students’ skills in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in their critical care master course.

Background.CPR is a common procedure in intensive care settings and the nurses have an important role in this regard. To consider the aim of training critical care nursing students, and increasing quality of care in intensive care settings, the evaluation of students’ skills in CPR is essential to determine defects and  plan for improvement.

Method. In this descriptive study, nursing students’ performance was evaluated at the end of educational period of their critical care course using objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). The OSCE included five core skills in CPR: airway management, arterial blood gas (ABG) interpretation, basic life support, electrocardiography (ECG) interpretation and assessment of the level of consciousness.

Findings. The study population consisted of 17 nursing students in the 4^th semester of their critical care master course. The results showed the majority of students (64.7%) had moderate performance to do CPR skills. The best performance was related to assessment of the level of consciousness (52.9%). Basic life support (41.2%), airway management (35.3%) and ECG interpretation (11.8%) ranked as the next best skills, respectively. The worse performance was related to ABG interpretation with 0% pass score.

Conclusion. According to the findings, the performance of the nursing students in CPR is moderate, globally and cognitive skills are lower than psychomotor skills. Problem-based educational strategies and encouragement of active thinking are suggested for improving cognitive skills and more practice to improve all competencies up to desirable level.