The Relationship between Work Experience and Self-confidence of Emergency Nurses with Family Presence during Resuscitation

In hospitals, it is usually practice with patients presenting in cardiac arrest for family members to be taken outside of the resuscitation room; And family members are informed about the patient’s situation periodically by a team member. One of the issues discussed in many countries, including Iran, is the presence of family during resuscitation, which is not seriously implemented in Iran. Nurses' self-confidence is considered to be one of the effective factors in accepting and implementing this process by nurses. The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between the work experience of emergency nurses and their confidence during the family presence of patients while resuscitation.

This study was carried out in 7 teaching hospitals of Tabriz during three months (June to August 2019). For this purpose, 140 nurses were selected through stratified random sampling method. Nurses' demographic and self-confidence questionnaires about family presence during resuscitation were used.

The mean score of the participants’ age was 30.87±7.05. The majority of nurses was female and had a bachelorette degree in nursing. About half of the nurses (46.42%) had less than 5 years of work experience.  However, the mean confidence scores of nurses were 52.91±12.69 which was in a moderate level. Nurses with more work experience, had higher levels of self-confidence. This is while nurses with less than 5 years of work experience  had less self -confidence than nurses with 11-20 years (P = 0.025 and F =3.200) of work experience.

According to the findings of this study it can be stated that nurses who have higher levels of self-confidence are more prepared for family presence during resuscitation. Therefore, it is recommended that nursing and hospital managers engage highly experienced and confident nurses in the emergency departments in order to provide family centered care more effectively.