Emergency Room Nurses’ Attitudes toward Family Presence during Resuscitation: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction

Although there are guidelines that encourage the family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation, literature that reported on the healthcare team’s attitudes suggested that this practice is often discouraged, and it remains a debatable topic.

Aim

To assess the Emergency Room Nurses’ Attitudes toward family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation procedures.

Research design

A cross-sectional descriptive correlation research design was used for this study.

Participants and research context

A non-probability convenience sample for this study comprised 222 registered nurses who have worked in emergency departments. The study used Family Presence During Resuscitation scale to collect the data related to nurses’ attitude toward family presence during CPR.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the ethics committee at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan.

Results

Jordanian nurses had a positive attitude toward the health beliefs with a mean score of (3.71 ± 0.81), followed by cues and triggers (3.60 ± 0.82). The least attitude endorsed by nurses was perceived self-efficacy with a mean score of (2.87 ± 0.80). Point-biserial correlation yielded a positive correlation between marital status and cues or triggers (r = 0.055; p = 0.043). Moreover, person correlation showed a positive relationship between age and health beliefs (r = 00.134; p = 0.040) and a negative correlation between experience and self-efficacy (r=-0.141; p = 0.043).

Conclusion

Enhancing nurses’ confidence based on evidence-based practice would prepare nurses to handle family presence during resuscitation.

Keywords:

• Emergency room nurses
• attitudes
• family presence
• resuscitation

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan for the logistic support they provided us to execute this study. We are also thankful to all the nurses and hospitals who generously shared their time for the purpose of this study.

Author Contributions

We declare that all authors made substantial contributions to the study and fulfilled the definition of authorship set up by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). MA, RA, AA, SF, MH and AH were responsible for the study conception and design. MA, AA, and SF collected the data, RA, AH and MA performed the data analysis. MA, RA, AA, SF, AH and MH were responsible for drafting the manuscript and MH made critical revisions to the paper for important intellectual content.

Ethics

Ethics approval was granted by Al-Zaytoonah Human Research Ethics Committee, Jordan.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the ethics committee at of Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan.

Informed Consent

A written consent was obtained from each participant.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.