Pondicherry Journal of Nursing

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VOLUME 15 , ISSUE 1 ( January-March, 2022 ) > List of Articles

Original Article

Usability Testing of 7 As for Assessment and Management of Head Injury: A Kasturba Gandhi Nursing College Model among Staff Nurses Working in Emergency Medical Services, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, Puducherry—An Exploratory Research

Nandhini Shanmugam, Surendran Raju, K Renuka

Keywords : Assessment, Emergency department, Head injury

Citation Information : Shanmugam N, Raju S, Renuka K. Usability Testing of 7 As for Assessment and Management of Head Injury: A Kasturba Gandhi Nursing College Model among Staff Nurses Working in Emergency Medical Services, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, Puducherry—An Exploratory Research. 2022; 15 (1):7-9.

DOI: 10.5005/jp-journals-10084-13128

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Published Online: 13-06-2022

Copyright Statement:  Copyright © 2022; The Author(s).


Abstract

A head injury, also known as a traumatic brain injury, is an injury to the head caused by blunt trauma, acceleration, or deceleration forces that cause one or more of the following symptoms: any time when you are confused, disoriented, or have a loss of consciousness, any memory problems around the time of the accident, a loss of consciousness that lasts shorter than 30 minutes, and the development of neurological or neuropsychological abnormalities. In order to move to the next level of care and handling the patients, nurses must assess head injury patients in an emergency room. Objectives: The objective of the study was to test the usability of 7 As for assessment and management of head injury—a Kasturba Gandhi Nursing College (KGNC) model among staff nurses working in Emergency Medical Services. Materials and methods: Quantitative research approach was used for this study. One group pretest and posttest design was adopted for the study. Forty samples were selected by using purposive sampling method. Demographic variables of the staff nurses were collected using structured questionnaire and designed model was represented in the form of poster and will be displayed on Emergency Medical Service (EMS) walls before the data collection. Posttest was conducted using structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics like frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Mann–Whitney test, and Chi-square test. Results: Among them, 32 (80%) belonged to 21–25 years, 7 (17.5%) were between 26 and 30 years, and only 1 (2.5%) was between 31 and 40 years. The analysis of gender shows that 9 (22.5%) of them were males and 31 (77.5%) of them were females. The analysis of education shows that all of them (40 subjects) (100%) completed Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSc Nursing). The analysis of years of experience shows that 5 (12.5%) of them have 0–1 year, 32 (80%) of them have 1–3 years, 3 (7.5%) of them had 4–8 years of experience, and none of them has more than 9 years. In the level of usability of 7 As on assessment of head injury among staff nurses out of 40 samples, 22 (55%) of nurses were in category of Easy to Practice, 17 (42.5%) of nurses were in the level of Able to Practice, and only one good in procedures and no one felt had to practice. Conclusion: The nurse working in clinical setting can use this assessment method in an easy way to assess and diagnose the severity of illness. The staff nurses can use this in their clinical practice. The study findings create empirical evidence to improve the quality of nursing care in terms of patient safety, time-consuming, cost-effectiveness, and preventable damage, and it can use in all the wards of the hospitals and also in home setup during rehabilitation.


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