Nurse competence in the post-anaesthesia care unit in Sweden: a qualitative study of the nurse’s perspective

Abstract

Background To enable safe and successful recovery for surgery patients, nurses working in post-anaesthesia care units need competence in postoperative care. No consensus defines what this specific competence includes, and it has not been studied from the perspective of nurses working in post-anaesthesia care units. The aim of this study is twofold: 1) To explore and describe nurses’ perception of the competence needed to work in post-anaesthesia care units. 2) To explore and describe nurses’ perception of what characterizes an expert nurse in post-anaesthesia care units. Methods This qualitative inductive study uses individual interviews. Sixteen nurses were recruited from two post-anaesthesia care units located in different parts of Sweden. Inclusion criteria were nurses employed in the post-anaesthesia care units for ≥1 years. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted; data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results The interview analysis identified six subthemes and three themes. The themes being adaptable in an ever-changing environment and creating safe care represent the overarching meaning of competence required when working as a nurse in a Swedish post-anaesthesia care unit. Nurses must possess various technical and nontechnical skills, which are core competences that are described in the sub-themes. The theme seeing the bigger picture describes the nurse’s perception of an expert nurse in the post-anaesthesia care unit. Conclusions Nurse competence in post-anaesthesia care units entails specific knowledge, acknowledging the patient, and working proactively at a fast pace with the patient and team to provide safe, high-quality care. An expert nurse in post-anaesthesia care units can see the bigger picture, helping share knowledge and develop post-anaesthesia care. The expert competence to see a bigger picture can be used in supervising novices and creating a knowledge base for postgraduate education in order to promote safe, high-quality post-anaesthesia care.

Efficacy of High-Quality Nursing Service for the Patients during the Anesthesia Recovery Period: A Meta-Analysis

“…The characteristics of included studies are summarized in Table 1. Eight involving high-quality nursing services for the patients during the anesthesia recovery period were included [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. All the experimental groups were treated with high-quality nursing [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…Meta-analysis identifies the risk of bias in randomized trials included in this study (Figure 2). We performed the randomization based on the computer-aided random list or using a randomly generated pattern of numbers within most of the trials [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. The low risk of incomplete outcome data and selection of outcome reports were utilized to characterize the randomized trials taken in this research.…”

“…The low risk of incomplete outcome data and selection of outcome reports were utilized to characterize the randomized trials taken in this research. Eight studies [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] taken in this research were described with blinding of high-risk contributors and staff and assessing the outcome [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Furthermore, the randomized trials consider the uncertain risk of other biases.…”

“…Researches. The metaanalysis of 8 selected researches in this study [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] revealed that the efficiency of recovery time of spontaneous respiration was significantly improved in the experimental group (SMD = −1:48, 95%CI = ½−1:62,−1:34; Figure 3).…”

“…In this study, we analyzed the forest plot by applying the meta-analysis of extubation time. The 8 included studies [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] identified the outcome of extubation time. We found the 2458 samples in the experimental group and 1862 samples in the control group for further analysis.…”