Nurses’ Perceptions of Physical Assessment Skills for Detecting Acute Progress of Heart Failure.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate nurses' perceptions of physical assessment skills for detecting acute progress of heart failure with time limit in clinical settings. The design of this study was survey research. Research sites were randomly selected from hospitals with 200 or more beds from all over Japan. Finally， the study was conducted at 44 hospitals that agreed to participate. A self-administered questionnaire was developed by the investigator of this study. Forty-eight physical assessment skills were selected for the questionnaire. The results suggest that regardless of the number of years of clinical experience or caring experience for patients with acute progress of heart failure， nurses tend to assess acute progress heart failure patients based on regarding 'necessity' as 'urgency'. Among 33 selected physical assessment items， the physical assessment items chosen by nurses with less than 5 years of clinical experience were similar to those chosen by nurses without experience of taking care of patients with acute progress of heart failure， and were data and items needed in acute phase in general. On the other hand， physical assessment items chosen by nurses with more than 5 years of clinical experience were similar to that chosen by nurses with experience of taking care of patients with acute progress of heart failure， and were direct physical findings specific to heart failure．