Iran Journal of Nursing

  A survey was made to determine the knowledge of nurses working in coronary care units regarding assessing paint and rendering nursing care to clients with acute myocardial infarction in hospitals affiliated with the ministry of health services and medical education (Tehran, 1995).

  A total of 120 nurses working in coronary care units were selected randomly to participate in this study. The tool was a 3 parts questionnaire that posed 7 questions about demographic characteristics of the subjects like age, sex, education, position, duration of service in C.C.U., past experience in nursing and special training on C.C.U. nursing received.

  The second part posed 8 questions regarding assessment of pain in acute myocardial infarction attack and finally to measure the nurses' knowledge on giving care to clients suffering the pain due to a myocardial infarction attack, the subjects were asked 13 more questions. Thus a total of 21 scores were expected to be gained by the respondents (8 for pain assessment and 13 for nursing care).

  The findings were presented in 25 descriptive tables and measures of mean and standard deviations determined, further inferal statistics were employed to analyze the findings.

  The results showed that the nurses' knowledge on cardiac pain assessment and the nursing care of the clients experiencing pain due to acute myocardial infarction is satisfactory (The mean and standard deviations for each were respectively X=4.63 – SD=32 and X=7.81-SD=1.73).

  To analyze the relationship between variables, T tests and pierson's correlation coefficient tests were employed and no significant relationships were found between the demographic characteristics of the subjects and their knowledge of assessing pain rendering nursing care to clients experiencing myocardial infarction attack.