title: Cardiac rhythm responses. 2. Review of 22 years of nursing research.
abstract: To discover what questions nurses have been asking about cardiac rhythm responses, a literature search was conducted. A total of 57 nursing studies reported from 1964 through 1987 were identified. Research studies of cardiac rhythm responses could be grouped into four broad categories: (1) those that explored the phenomenon itself; (2) those that measured cardiac rhythm responses alone or in conjunction with other dependent variables as an index of another phenomenon such as fear, stress and anxiety, biologic (circadian) rhythms, pain severity and pain coping, sensory stimulation and overstimulation, fatigue, metabolic energy expenditure, and fetal well-being-fetal oxygen reserve; (3) those that measured cardiac rhythm responses to evaluate the safety or efficacy of various nursing interventions and routines; and (4) those that measured cardiac rhythm responses to evaluate recovery from acute myocardial infarction or cardiac surgery including evaluation of the success of cardiac rehabilitation programs. Four landmark studies that contributed new knowledge or changed practice are discussed. In addition, questions suggesting areas for future research are listed.
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Francisco.
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Drew
mesh_terms: D004562:Electrocardiography; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000451:nursing / Q000503:physiopathology; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D015399:Nursing Research