Nursing Skills in Emergency

Introduction: following the finding of discrepancies between necessary skills and those of new graduates hired in the Emergency Department, it became necessary to identify the skills required of the emergency nurse. Materials and methods: two-phase research: first interview with 17 nurses and subsequent exploratory cross-sectional survey with cascade method via email. Questionnaire made up of the Dag model, integrated with what emerged from the first interview. Results: for a sample of 191 nurses, the cases requiring specific expertise are: “Patients and family members in rage”, “Ischemic stroke”, “Psychotic decompensation” and “Polytraumatized”. The student must learn how to: “Evaluate the state of consciousness”, “Recognize criticality” and “Perform high-quality CPR”. The ability to "Work in a team" and "Confrontation with colleagues" are considered important. There is also a perceived risk of errors. Discussion: "identification of the critical patient through inspection" and "management of alterations" are priorities. Technical and non-technical skills must correlate with the cases encountered, especially those considered more difficult to manage: subjects in rage, pediatrics, psychotic decompensation and polytraumatized. Relational skills, management of the work environment and stress and training related to clinical risk are necessary. Conclusions: a ranking of the skills necessary to acquire during the university education period that should be considered in the degree course programs has been drawn up.