Purpose
The purpose of this study was to measure directly the knowledge and performance of
novice and experienced critical care nurses in a simulated task environment.
Methods
Nurses were required to control the physiologic deterioration of patients with respiratory
compromise in 4 scenarios and were also tested on their knowledge of the constructs
present in the scenarios.
Results
The results indicate that experienced nurses possessed highly superior knowledge when
compared with novice nurses (P < .001). The results further demonstrated a lack of reliable differences in actual
clinical performance when nurses were considered solely on the basis of their term
of experience. Group differences in performance were demonstrated only when nurses
who had achieved board certification in critical care nursing were compared with the
remaining participants.
Conclusion
The results demonstrate the lack of linkage between knowledge and clinical performance,
which calls into question the supposition by many in nursing that knowledge and performance
are inextricably linked.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 23, 2009
Footnotes
This research was funded by the Office of Naval Research grant N00014-04-1-0588 and N00014-05-1-0785.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
