Acute Care Nurses' Arrhythmia Knowledge: Defining Competency
Kathryn Buchanan Keller, Terry Eggenberger, Mary Ann Leavitt, Denese Sabatino
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Most methods of evaluating arrhythmia knowledge acquisition are internally developed by nursing professional development practitioners and are institution specific. This approach has resulted in assessing nurses' minimal qualifications for rhythm recognition as defined by the facility but does not result in describing basic, intermediate, and advanced competency levels for practice. METHOD: This quantitative study with a convenience sample of 85 acute care nurses refined an instrument to assess varying levels of arrhythmia recognition competency for acute care nurses. RESULTS: The final instrument, called the Cardiac Arrhythmia Recognition Tool (CART), consisted of 33 items divided into basic, intermediate, and advanced subscales, with an overall Cronbach's alpha of .84. CONCLUSION: This study significantly contributes to defining arrhythmia competency in nurses caring for electrocardiographically monitored patients. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2020;51(1):39-45.].