Effectiveness of planned teaching programme on knowledge in handling of critical care patients among novice nurses

In a healthcare delivery point, critical care services are established to addresses the emergency need of a patient in a life-threatening situation. Although physicians and specialists primarily treats the patient in acritical condition, it is often the critical care nurses who cares the patients round the clock to maintaining the physiological demands. A pre-experimental, one group pretest posttest research design was adopted for the study and 30 novice nurses were recruited using simple random sampling technique. Semi structured questionnaire was used to assess the level of knowledge in handling critical care patients and administered planned teaching among novice nurses nurses for about 30 minutes followed by the posttest. The study findings revealed that the pretest mean score was 15 with SD of 3.7and posttest mean score was 26 with SD of 1.7. The paired `t` value of 13.8*** demonstrated that there was a statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest level of knowledge at p<0.001.