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Introduction Emergency situations require advanced and specialized knowledge and skills to handle urgent situations. However, there is a scarcity of literature on emergency nurses' competencies. We assessed the competencies of nurses working in the emergency departments of hospitals in the Qassim region. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 213 nursing staff at the emergency departments of all government hospitals in the Qassim region. A standardized tool was adopted for data collection which encompassed sociodemographic and self-reported competencies in nine emergency nursing domains, reflecting the core competencies using a 5-point Likert scale. Data was collected through an online survey. SPSS version 26 (IBM Corp., Armonk, USA) was used for data analysis. Linear regression analysis was carried out to explore the factors associated with competencies. Results A total of 213 nurses were included in the study with a mean age of 32.9±4.6 years. More than two-thirds of the nurses were female (69.5) and more than half were Saudi nationals. The mean experience of the participants was (6.3±3.7) years. The nurses at the emergency department had satisfactory knowledge about most of the core emergency nursing competencies with some areas such as genitourinary, gynecological assessment, and documentation being deficient. Increasing age, being non-Saudi, married and nurse supervisor were associated with higher competencies. Conclusions Nurses generally had satisfactory knowledge of most of the core competencies of nurses in the emergency department in the Qassim region. However, there were deficiencies in core competencies in some domains. There is a need to provide on-the-job training and coaching for emergency nurses to improve their competencies and the quality of emergency care in the hospitals.
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BACKGROUND: Anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibodies-associated vasculitis (AAV) is a rare autoimmune condition with high-relapsing rate and incidence of complications, resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. Characters of patients with anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibodies-associated vasculitis in Saudi Arabia require further exploration. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical profile, relapse rate and disease-related complications among patients with AAV at a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia. To estimate the role of BVAS score at the time of presentation in predicting relapse during the disease course. DESIGN AND SETTING: This retrospective cohort study was performed through data collection from patients' records who had AAV, who visited the rheumatology clinic. The collected data involved the demographics of patients and their investigations, medications, and outcomes of treatment. Statistical analysis was executed through SPSS version 26. RESULTS: Fifty-two patients were eligible for inclusion, while 48 patients were analyzed because of missing data. Females represented 60.4%. Half of the patients were more than 50 years old, and 68.8% had comorbidities. As for diagnosis, 62.5% had granulomatosis with polyangiitis, 25% had eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis, and 12.5% had microscopic polyangiitis. The rate of relapse was 31.3%, while the remission rate was 68.8%. Additionally, 66.7% had lower respiratory involvement, and 43.8% had renal involvement. More than half of the patients had BVAS score below 14.5 points. The study did not explore a positive correlation between the disease relapse and high BVAS at the first presentation. CONCLUSION: Early prediction of relapse and such intervention is of paramount importance in order to avoid accrual of organ damage with treatments that prevent further relapses. BVAS score was not found to be a potential predictor in our study. Future studies are highly endorsed, with prospective design and large sample size to achieve statistical significance for the incidence of relapses and complications.