Cardiac Vascular Nursing Exam Research & Evidence-Based Practice 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A cardiovascular nurse evaluates a clinical practice guideline from the American Heart Association (AHA). Which component indicates the STRENGTH of a recommendation?
- Class of Recommendation (COR) (Correct answer)
- Number of supporting studies cited
- Year of publication of the guideline
- Number of expert panelists involved
Correct answer: Class of Recommendation (COR)
The AHA Class of Recommendation (COR) — ranging from I (strong benefit) to III (no benefit or harm) — indicates the strength of a guideline recommendation.
Question 2: In translational research, what does 'T2 translation' refer to in the context of cardiovascular nursing?
- Translating basic science findings into early clinical trials
- Translating clinical research findings into practice guidelines and policies (Correct answer)
- Conducting cross-cultural studies in diverse cardiac populations
- Adapting international guidelines to local hospital protocols
Correct answer: Translating clinical research findings into practice guidelines and policies
T2 translation refers to moving findings from clinical trials into health guidelines, clinical practice, and health policy — implementing proven interventions at scale.
Question 3: A nurse assesses the reliability of a new cardiac pain assessment tool. The tool is administered twice by the same nurse 48 hours apart with similar results. This BEST demonstrates:
- Inter-rater reliability
- Content validity
- Test-retest reliability (Correct answer)
- Criterion validity
Correct answer: Test-retest reliability
Test-retest reliability measures the consistency of a tool when administered to the same individuals under the same conditions at two different time points.
Question 4: Which statistical measure BEST quantifies the degree of agreement among multiple cardiac nurses rating the same patient's wound healing using an ordinal scale?
- Pearson correlation coefficient
- Cohen's kappa (Correct answer)
- Cronbach's alpha
- Intraclass correlation coefficient
Correct answer: Cohen's kappa
Cohen's kappa is the appropriate statistic for measuring inter-rater agreement on categorical or ordinal data, adjusting for agreement expected by chance.
Question 5: A cardiac nurse reviews a diagnostic accuracy study on a new troponin assay. The study reports a sensitivity of 95% and specificity of 85%. What does the 85% specificity mean?
- 85% of patients with true MI will test positive
- 85% of patients without MI will correctly test negative (Correct answer)
- The test correctly identifies 85% of all cardiac events
- 15% of positive tests are false positives
Correct answer: 85% of patients without MI will correctly test negative
Specificity of 85% means the test correctly identifies 85% of individuals who do NOT have the condition as negative (true negatives).
Question 6: A hospital implements an evidence-based early ambulation protocol after cardiac surgery. Six months later, outcomes data is collected. This implementation follows which phase of the PDSA cycle?
- Plan
- Do
- Study (Correct answer)
- Act
Correct answer: Study
The Study phase of the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycle involves analyzing data collected after implementation to evaluate whether the change led to improvement.
Question 7: A researcher conducts a Delphi study to establish consensus on best practices for cardiac telemetry monitoring. Which characteristic is UNIQUE to the Delphi method?
- Requires direct observation of clinical practice
- Uses iterative anonymous expert rounds with controlled feedback (Correct answer)
- Compares two intervention groups in parallel
- Requires a minimum of 500 participants
Correct answer: Uses iterative anonymous expert rounds with controlled feedback
The Delphi method uses multiple rounds of anonymous expert surveys with summarized group feedback after each round to build consensus while preventing group-think.
Cardiac Vascular Nursing Exam Research & Evidence-Based Practice 4
A cardiovascular nurse evaluates a clinical practice guideline from the American Heart Association (AHA).
Which component indicates the STRENGTH of a recommendation?