Exploring nurses' experiences of performing basic life support in hospital wards: An inductive thematic analysis

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Emergency Medicine
• Healthcare Quality

Background:

• Nurses may struggle with in-hospital cardiac arrest events due to performance anxiety, unclear leadership, and skill degradation.
• Existing evidence suggests potential deficits in nurses' ability to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the lived experiences of ward-based nurses during real-life CPR events.
• To identify factors influencing nurses' performance and emotional responses during resuscitation.

Main Methods:

• In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 ward-based nurses across three hospitals.
• Verbatim interview transcripts were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis with NVivo 12 software.

Main Results:

• Four key themes emerged: challenges in performance, effective teamwork, emotional reflection on CPR events, and learning from experiences.
• Nurses reported significant stress and anxiety during basic life support (BLS) but noted a slight decrease with prior real-life resuscitation experience.

Conclusions:

• Current BLS education inadequately prepares nurses for the complexities of in-hospital resuscitation.
• Future BLS training should incorporate frequent, in-depth scenarios, interdisciplinary team training, and focus on improving nurses' preparedness and confidence.