Delphi Study on the Required Level of Physical Assessment of Stroke Patients by Nurses Part 1: Focus on the Examination of the Cranial Nerves

Abstract

Purpose: is study aimed to clarify the skills required by nurses for the physical assessment of the cranial nerve in stroke patients to conduct this test and whether any item can be practiced at any level of the acute and recovery phases, which is regarded as essential by Certi Nurse in Stroke Rehabilitation Nursing (SRN). Method: e Delphi method was used for this quantitative descriptive study. A newly developed self-administered questionnaire was distributed by mail to 126 certi nurses in stroke reha-bilitation nursing, with whom, the expert panel was organized. e questionnaire comprised 40 items regarding cranial nerve examination during the acute phase and recovery phase. An estab-lished consensus was de by 51% agreement on the third survey results. Result: e nurses reached a practice-level consensus on the 30 acute phase items and the 23 recovery phase items. Furthermore, an assessment-level consensus was reached for 8 acute phase items and 7 recovery phase items.