Self-Assessed Capabilities, Attitudes, and Stress among Pediatric Nurses in Relation to Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

BACKGROUND: In emergency medicine, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is one of the most stressful scenarios for nurses who conduct both basic and advanced resuscitation methods. AIM: This study aimed to assess nurses’ self-assessed capabilities, attitudes, and stress related to CPR. METHODS: This cross-sectional, observational study was carried out on 748 pediatric nurses at six governmental hospitals. A self–assessed ability questionnaire and a structured stress and attitude questionnaire was used for data collection. RESULTS: For self-assessed abilities, 45.5% of the nurses had moderate scores. Concerning stress, 48.3% had moderate scores and 63.1% negative attitudes. Also, attitude and self-assessed abilities had a high-frequency negative effect on stress scores (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Attitude scores increased and stress scores decreased significantly with postgraduate educational level, attendance at training courses on pediatric basic life support and automated external defibrillator use, being exposed to >10 cardiac arrest cases in the previous year, and having an advanced life-support license (P<0.05). Positive attitudes and improving self-assessed abilities decreased the nurses’ stress levels related to CPR.