Nursing practice experience in hospitalized children with cardiovascular disease and their families

<p> This study aimed to investigate nurses’ actual experiences regarding essential practice items in pediatric cardiology nursing. A survey was conducted among nurses with more than one year of experience in caring for children with congenital heart disease. Based on previous studies, this survey included items such as years of service, department affiliation, and experience in 66 important practice areas related to hospitalized children with cardiovascular disease and their families. Out of the 410 distributed questionnaires across 22 facilities, 209 were analyzed. The findings revealed that nurses possessed substantial experience in most of the nursing practice areas pertaining to assessment and involvement for stabilization. Additionally, significant differences were observed in 12 practice items based on years of service, and 30 items based on department affiliation. Specifically, the ward/outpatient group demonstrated higher scores in areas such as explaining to children, whereas the intensive care unit group exhibited higher scores in areas such as judging monitoring data and intraoperative information. The results underscore the need for the pediatric cardiovascular nursing learning program to focus less on the nurses’ years of and instead prioritize the specific disease periods, such as neonatal, perioperative, convalescent, and remote periods, as well as the developmental stages of the children receiving nursing care.</p>