Factors influencing nurses’ decisions to activate medical emergency teams

Abstract

Graduating from a four-year educational programme helps nurses identify emergencies. However, irrespective of the educational programme they have followed, undertaking a basic life support or advanced life support provider course is critical as it helps them identify cardiac or respiratory emergencies.

An integrated review of the correlation between critical thinking ability and clinical decision‐making in nursing

“…Part of the study done by Hoffman, Donoghue, and Duffield () explored the associations between age and clinical decision‐making in Australia nurses and established that older subjects in their study had a weak but significantly higher scores in their clinical decision‐making ( r = .223, p < .05). This finding agrees with other studies reporting that experienced nurses make more effective clinical decisions than less experienced nurses (Bakalis & Watson, ; Pantazopoulos et al., ). Bjørk and Hamilton () investigated factors affecting types of clinical decision‐making and found that years of working experience ( r = .132, p < .05) and increase age ( r = .059, p < .05) are significantly associated with clinical decision‐making.…”

An Integrative Literature Review of the Factors That Contribute to Professional Nurses and Midwives Making Sound Clinical Decisions

“…The factors that were most strongly influential were the physical and clinical status of the patient and the experience of the nurse or midwife. Factors were identified in a variety of settings, including obstetric units (Cheyne et al., ; Oduro‐Mensah et al., ; Wu et al., ), intensive care units (Aitken, Marshall, Elliott, & McKinley, ; Marshall et al., ; Tai, ), acute or critical care units (Bucknall, ; Cioffi, Conwyt, Everist, Scott, & Senior, ; Currey & Worrall‐Carter, ; Currey, Browne, & Botti, ; Hancock & Easen, ; Hirsh et al., ; Hoffman, Donoghue, & Duffield, ; Lavellea & Dowling, ; McNett, Doheny, Sedlak, & Ludwick, ; Rattray et al., ; Thompson et al., ), coronary care units (Bakalisa et al., ; Currey & Botti, ), emergency departments (Chung, ; Garbez, Carrieri‐Kohlman, Stotts, Chan, & Neighbor, ; Gerdtz & Bucknall, , ), psychiatric units (Dewar, Mullett, & Langdeau, ; Lindsey, ), medical/surgical wards (Harper, Ersser, & Gobbi, ; Hasegawa, Ogasawara, & Katz, ; Helmrich et al., ; King & Macleod, ; Ludwick et al., ; Pantazopoulos et al., ), and palliative and oncology wards (Searle & McInerney, ).…”

Effect of implementation of a rapid response system on protocol adherence in a surgical ward

“…In contrast, ward staff may have felt that they were able to handle the situation by themselves [33,34] . For example, Pantazopolous (2012) found that nurses with a higher level of education or who attended a resuscitation course were less likely to call for help [35] . Furthermore, ward staff may have felt uncertain to call for help even when the patient met the warning criteria [34] .…”