Effectiveness of an Interventional Program on Nurses' Knowledge and Practices About Clinical Monitoring Devices Alarms at Intensive Care Unit at Al-Imam Al-Hussein Medical City in Holy Karbala Governorate
Authors: Obeid Ali , Hassan Huda 
Published: December 2022

Background: In recent years, the number of devices with alarms has multiplied exponentially in the vast majority of hospital units. Where monitors, ventilators, infusion pumps, and many other devices beep endlessly, demanding the care provider’s attention always (1).

Aims of the study: The aims of the present study is to find out the effectiveness of instruction program on nurses knowledge concerning causes of releasing clinical devices alarm and to find out the relationship between the effectiveness of program and nurses level of education, year of experiences in nursing, and year of experiences in intensive care units.

Methodology: a quasi-experimental study was carried out on 80 nurses which is divided to two groups (Experimental group who exposed on program, and control group to compare with experimental group) of nurses working in Al-Imam Al-Hussein Medical City, in holy Kerbala 'a City, Iraq. The study started in 3rd of May, 2020 to 25th of May, 2021. The instrument consist of two part; part one deals the characteristics of the sample which of age, gender, level of education, year of experiences in nursing, year of experiences in intensive care units, and specific training courses. Part two deals with the nurses' knowledge concerning causes of releasing clinical devices alarm which of 23 items. The validity of instrument and program was obtained from 12 experts in specialty, the reliability was =1.81, the data analysis was done by uses SPSS program version 23, the statistical methods which used in present study is descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: the findings of present study revealed that the nurses’ responses for experimental, and control groups about the causes of releasing alarm for monitor, ventilator, and syringe pump infuser alarm, which of 54.31% of experimental group knowledge about the causes of monitor device alarm at pretest, while their knowledge was improved to 100.0% at posttest, the control group knowledge related to causes of monitor device alarm was still at same level in pre and posttest which of 54.32%, the experimental group knowledge related to causes of ventilator machine alarm was 53.16% at pretest, and changes to 93.66% at posttest, while the control group knowledge related to causes of ventilator alarm was 22.26% in pre and posttest, and the nurse responses for causes of syringe pump infuser alarm was 63.38% at pretest and their responses improved at posttest which of 100.0% for experimental group, and the control group knowledge about causes of alarm for syringe pup infuser was 26.66% at pre and posttest.

Conclusion: the study concluded that the instruction program on nurses’ knowledge was effective on experimental group through improving their knowledge.

Recommendations: The researcher recommends that the current program should be applied to all nurses in critical units because of its utmost importance in monitoring and patient safety