ABSTRACT
The critical incident technique is a survey of how well certain job tasks are performed. it is carried out by collecting effective and ineffective behaviors observed in actual practice of a specific activity or procedure. The technique can be used in appraisal of performance of nurses and nursing student. It can serve as the basis to plan training programs to upgrade competent performance. The aim of this study was to analyze tasks in giving I.M. Injection [a basis nursing procedure] to reveal ineffective and effective performance as well as to compare the use of the critical incident technique with the observation method in performance analysis. The study was conducted in the OPD of Ismailia Hospitals. A total of 989 critical incidents were collected. They were grouped into 4 major groups. Of these 36.0% were in the area of preparation, 14.3% were in the area of meeting patient's needs, 35.1% in the area of skills in implementation and 14.6% were in management of complications. An observation of 900 I.M. injections was made using a specially prepared check list. The over all performance was poor [98.9%]. Only 1.1% was average but none was good. The least performance was in the phases of pre-injection and post- injection [98.2%]. While the best was in the injection phase [69.8%]. The study revealed that the use of the critical incident technique was economical in time and effort. It was able to identify areas of performance which was difficult to obtain by observation. It is recommended that this technique is to be used to cover all nursing procedures especially the routine ones. Also, to minimize the gap between what ought and what is actually done. It is also advised in the training of nurses and nursing students to emphasize effective and ineffective incidents related to various areas in the nursing procedures