Evidence-based education and the evaluation of a critical care course

A critical care nursing course was designed to enhance knowledge attainment for RNs new to critical care, and to prepare seasoned critical care nurses for specialty certification. The convenience sample of nurses (N = 57) was either enrolled in the 16-session course (n = 27) or assigned to a control group (n = 30). A repeated measures design allowed data collection at three time points: precourse, course completion, and 6 months after course completion. Mean scores on the Basic Knowledge Assessment Tool were significantly higher for course participants at the time of course completion, and scores continued to remain high 6 months later, demonstrating important retention of critical care knowledge.