Evaluation of a course for the training of nursing professionals in urgency and emergency

AIMS: This work aims to evaluate a course model for the training of the nursing team in emergency care, as well as establishing the period which the knowledge acquired in the course is still memorized and when the course should be reministered to guarantee the professional's proficiency. METHODS: We selected 45 nursing professionals who worked at the Cardiology Units of the Hospital de Clinicas of the Federal University of Parana. In this group, a pre-test of 20 multiple choice questions was applied, mentioning the previous knowledge of the team. After the pre-test, a two-hour theoretical-practical course was given on the recognition of severe patients and initial management of a cardiorespiratory arrest, practicing ventilation maneuvers and chest compression on a manikin. After the course, the same test was reapplied to identify if there was improvement in the number of correct answers. Within three and six months the test was again applied in order to establish the knowledge storage rate over that period. RESULTS: We observed that the average accuracy in the pre-test was 9.4 +/- 3.3 questions. In the immediate post-test, there was an increase in the mean of correct answers to 15.3 +/- 2 questions. After three months, the average number of correct answers fell to 12 +/- 3.1 questions and after six months was 10 +/- 3.3 questions. It was also possible to identify that the professionals who worked in the Intensive Care Unit and Hemodynamics presented a greater number of correct answers (12.6 +/- 3.4) when compared to the professionals who worked in the Infirmary (9.4 +/- 4.4). Performing a regressive analysis, we observed a statistically significant improvement in the test results shortly after the training and in three months (p <0.05) which did not occur in the time of six months. CONCLUSION: We can infer from the improvement in the number of correct answers to the questionnaire that the theoretical-practical course model was effective in promoting the training of nursing professionals. However, the fixation of knowledge decays over the months, returning to values close to the initial within six months.