RESUMO
This study aimed to assess nurses' knowledge and practices concerning cardiac monitoring and emergency care of patients with dysrhythmias and to develop, apply and evaluate an educational training program concerning emergency situation of dysrhythmia. Three tools were designed specifically to collect data. The first tool was a structured questionnaire to assess nurses knowledge. The second tool was an observation checklist to assess nurses practices. The third tool was the educational training program [handout]. Assessment of all nurses' knowledge and practices was done as a baseline data [pre- test]. The program was applied on 28 nurses working in Critical Care Unit, post-test was done for all nurses using the pre-designed questionnaire and checklist sheets. The results of the study indicated that generally all nurses had low score in their knowledge [[mean +/- SEM] 14.9 +/- 0.05] and practices [[mean +/- SEM] 26 +/- 1.0] concerning emergency care of patients with dysrhythmias. A high statistically significant difference was found between pre- and post-test concerning nurses knowledge and practices