A Study of Nurse Anesthetist Roles

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive research was to study about component and sub-item of nurse anesthetist roles by using Delphi technique. Participants were 20 experts including; 4 anesthesiologists, 4 executives of the nurse anesthetist society of Thailand, 3 nurse anesthetist instructor of the college of advanced practice nurse and midwife of Thailand, 4 head nurses of anesthesia unit and 5 anesthetist nurses. The Delphi technique consisted of 3 steps. Step 1, all experts were asked to described about the professional nurse’s roles. Step 2, the data were analyzed by using content analysis to develop a rating scale questionnaire. All items in the questionnaire were ranked the level of nurse anesthetist roles by a prior panel of experts. In step 3, the items were analyzed by using median and interquartile range to develop a new version of questionnaire. The new questionnaire was sent to previous experts for confirming. Ranking items were analyzed by using median and interquartile again to summarize the study.

The results of the study were presented that the nurse anesthetist roles consisted of 4 components as follow 1) Nurse anesthetists are specialized nurse practitioners 19 items 2) Nurse anesthetists are responsible for safety and risk management in anesthesia 6 items 3) Nurse anesthetists are educators and consultants in this field 5 items 4) Nurse anesthetists are developer and quality control service in anesthesia person 7 items. The nursing administrators were able to use the results of this research as a guideline for the performance of the nursing anesthetists.