Type of Document	Thesis
Author	Biddy, Karen Connell
URN	etd-07082004-160032
Title	Flight Nurses'and Nonflight Critical Care Nurses' Knowledge of the Pulmonary Artery Catheter: A Comparison Study
Degree	Master of Science
Department	Nursing, School of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Jeanne Flannery Committee Chair Denise Tucker Committee Member Don Workman Committee Member
Keywords	Knowledge Catheter Arterty Pulmonary
Date of Defense	2004-04-28
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract Historically, several studies about knowledge of the P A catheter were done. Critical care nurses and physicians were tested for their level of knowledge of the P A catheter and its use on critically ill individuals. Unfortunately, each study revealed that a knowledge deficit among this group of professionals did exist. The purpose of this study was again to test critical care nurses, but also to include flight nurses. Their patient care arena is recognized as a critical care area, too. In order to evaluate the knowledge of the P A catheter of these two groups, flight nurses and nonflight critical care nurses, the Multicenter Pulmonary Artery Catheter Questionnaire developed by Iberti and Associates (1990), was used to sample these two groups by way of the World Wide Web. The 27-item, multiple-choice questionnaire was placed on the Internet along with a 17-item demographic data sheet to include variables such as age, gender, nursing experience (general and specific), specialty certification, P A catheter education, and educational background. These variables were chosen to replicate the ones used in prior studies and again to see if they affected the participants’ scores. The questionnaire was available on the web site for 4 months. During this time, continuous effort was made by the investigator to make known the existence of the questionnaire. This was done by email, communications through nurse chat and discussion groups online, telephone calls, and follow-up links, made available through communications with professional organizations (AACN and ASTNA). The mean knowledge score for the two groups was 47.37 (n = 35), the flight nurse sample had a mean score of 59.75 (n = 8), and the nonflight critical care nurse sample had a mean score of 43.7 (n = 27). Comparing the two samples’ outcomes with the mean score from the previous two studies, the flight nurse sample scores were more in line with the previous studies’ scores than the scores of the nonflight nurse sample. The sample size was too small to declare that the two groups were comparable with their knowledge of the P A catheter, but from a clinical view, the difference of the two mean scores does make the flight nurse sample more knowledgeable of P A catheters than the nonflight nurse sample. Further research is recommended with a larger population to determine if flight nurse knowledge of the P A catheter is greater than that of the nonflight critical care nurse. It is also recommended that a new tool be developed to focus on today’s changing bedside nursing and the technologies that assist in the care of the critically ill patients.
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    BiddyKThesis.pdf 5.18 Mb 00:23:57 00:12:19 00:10:47 00:05:23 00:00:27