Abstract
Background
Older adults are high users of emergency department services and their care requirements
can present challenges for emergency nurses. Although clinical outcomes for older
patients improve when they are cared for by nurses with specialist training, emergency
nurses’ knowledge and self-assessment of care for older patients is poorly understood.
Aim
To assess emergency nurses’ knowledge and self-rating of practice when caring for
older patients.
Methods
A cross-sectional self-report survey of emergency nurses (n = 101) in Melbourne, Australia.
Results
Mean scores were 12.7 (SD 2.66) for the 25-item knowledge of older persons questionnaire,
and 9.04 (SD 1.80) for the 15-item gerontic health related questions. Scores were
unaffected by years of experience as a registered nurse or emergency nurse. More than
80% of nurses rated themselves as ‘very good’ or ‘good’ in assessing pain (94.9%),
identifying delirium (87.8%), and identifying dementia (82.8%). Areas with a ‘poor’
ratings were identifying depression (46.5%), assessing polypharmacy (46.5%) and assessing
nutrition (37.8%).
Conclusions
There was variation in knowledge and self-rating of practice related to care of older
patients. The relationship between knowledge and self-ratings of practice in relation
to actual emergency nursing care of older people and patient outcomes warrants further
exploration.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 08, 2017
Accepted:
August 8,
2017
Received in revised form:
August 2,
2017
Received:
April 6,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 College of Emergency Nursing Australasia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
