Comparing the Workshop and Clinical Teammate Methods in Teaching the Arterial Blood Gas Interpretation to Critical Care Nurses

The sufficient knowledge of nurses has an important role in increase of nurses’ care in the critical units. Work-centered learning or learning in work place is one of the ways which is considered recently in the education of the professions related to Medicine and Nursing. This study aimed to compare two clinical teammate educator and workshop methods in the interpretation of arterial blood gases to the nurses working in the intensive care units. In this quasi experimental study, from Firoozgar Tehran hospital intensive care units 3 units were randomly selected as number one experimental unit (clinical teammate method) and number 2 and 3 experimental units (workshop method) in 2013. The samples included nurses working in these units selected with achievable sampling. At the beginning and the end of the training courses, the knowledge of nurses in the interpretation of arterial blood gases in both groups was measured using a questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS 19 software using descriptive and inferential statistics (Independent-T, exact Fisher and pair-T tests). There was a significant difference between before and after Nurses’ mean scores in workshop method group but there was no statistically significant difference between before and after nurses’ mean scores in clinical teammate group. Using workshop method is more appropriate compared with clinical teammate method to train the interpretation of arterial blood gases to the nurses of the critical care units.