Critical Appraisal of a Clinical Trial on an Educational Program to Decrease Monitor Alarms in a Medical Intensive Care Unit

This critical appraisal evaluates a clinical trial on an educational program to decrease monitor alarms in a medical intensive care unit. The study used a quantitative approach and convenience sampling technique. The results showed a correlation between staff educational program and rates of monitor alarms in ICU.

Running head: NURSING
Critical appraisal
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Answers
1. The population of interest was registered nurses working at a 20-bedded MICU. The
sample population comprised of 54 RNs who were working in 0.2-1.0 full-time-
equivalent (FTE) designations (Brantley et al., 2016). The researchers accurately
described the sample recruitment site and convenience sampling technique. This
sampling technique allowed the researchers to select participants based on their
proximity and convenient accessibility to the researcher (Etikan, Musa & Alkassim,
2016).
2. Owing to the fact that this was a quantitative study, alarm data were pulled out from
already prevailing computer log files, in relation to occurrence of perceptible monitor
alarm signals. This was the primary measure, in addition to number of low Spo2
alarm signal events that were collected from bedside alarm history, with the help of
Alarm Reporting Tool (Brantley et al., 2016).
3. The data collection was quantitative in nature, which elaborates on the fact that the
researchers tried to draw definite conclusion by emphasizing on objective
measurement obtained by conducting numerical and statistical analysis of data
(LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2018). Conduction of χ2 analysis helped in establishing a
correlation between the dependent and independent variables (staff educational
program and rates of monitor alarms in ICU) (Test, 2015).
4. The participant assessment procedure comprised of development of a non-equivalent,
pre-intervention, and post-intervention group design that helped in evaluating the
impact of educational program on alarm management in a sample that comprised of
MICU nurses. The educational program was conducted in the form of a 15-minute
session that was provided on a weekly basis for modifying the high and low alarm
settings, based on presenting complaints of the patients (Brantley et al., 2016).

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Following data capture, they were adjusted with respect to the patient number who
were observed each day. Data collection was continued for 15 days prior to and 15
days after the educational program implementation, with the aim of providing an
accurate description of the before-and-after effects of the intervention.
5. The participants had been provided with pocket cards for summarizing essential
information related to alarm limit setting procedures for individual patients.
Nonetheless, the researchers did not provide any information on access of the
participants to the study results (Brantley et al., 2016).
6. Ethical approval is required for all kinds of qualitative or quantitative research that
encompasses human contributors, their data or tissue, in order to guarantee that the
dignity, human rights, security and well-being are the chief contemplation of
the research plan (Walliman, 2017). Although the researchers had obtained prior
approval from the institution’s investigational review board, before data collection
procedure, they failed to shed light on whether informed consent had been taken from
the participants, before enrolling them in the investigation. No adequate facts were
also stated regarding the provision of refusing participation or withdrawing from the
study at any point of time.
7. Following collection and storage, data handling involved summarizing the inferences
drawn from χ2 analysis, followed by comparing the pre- and post-intervention results
for patients who were monitored, and low Spo2 alarms/day. Use of descriptive
statistics helped in summarizing the inferences drawn from the entire sample, in
contrast to inferential statistics that uses data for learning about the population
intended to represent (Hinton, 2014).

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References
Brantley, A., Collins-Brown, S., Kirkland, J., Knapp, M., Pressley, J., Higgins, M., &
McMurtry, J. P. (2016). Clinical trial of an educational program to decrease monitor
alarms in a medical intensive care unit. AACN advanced critical care, 27(3), 283-289.
Etikan, I., Musa, S. A., & Alkassim, R. S. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and
purposive sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5(1), 1-
4.
Hinton, P. R. (2014). Statistics explained. Routledge.
LoBiondo-Wood, G. & Haber, J. (2018). Nursing research: Methods and critical appraisal
for evidence-based practice. 8th Ed. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
Test, O. (2015). Your chi-square test is statistically significant±now what. Pract Assess Res
Eval, 20(8), 2-10.
Walliman, N. (2017). Research methods: The basics. Routledge.