Abstract
ABSTRACT
This project was created to implement standardized nursing competencies and education for registered nurses in the pediatric exercise stress laboratory. Pediatric exercise stress tests are increasing throughout the United States. Nurses are assisting exercise physiologists in this specialized area of testing, but have no standard education or competencies to assess their skills prior to preforming in the laboratory. In order to yield accurate results of this testing, nursing education must be implemented and assessed to create a safe testing environment. Nursing competencies were thus developed from the literature and expert consultation. An educational handout was created and nurses took a pre and post-test to assess understanding. Our results yielded an average pre-test score of 67%. After education the average post-test score was 93%, indicating nursing knowledge at baseline is not sufficient to be able to preform these tests and that additional education is needed.
