Critical care nurses are often required to assess a patient’s work of breathing and make clinical decisions based on their findings. There is currently no objective work of breathing assessment tool available. The purpose of this descriptive study was to discover how nurses conceptually describe and assess work of breathing and how they then make objective clinical decisions based on those assessments. Convenience and purposive sampling generated 69 return-by-mail surveys from critical and acute care nurses throughout the country. Descriptive statistics determined frequency distribution and central tendency of the responses. Based on the most popular responses of how nurses describe work of breathing, including use of accessory muscles, ability to speak, pursed lip breathing and respiratory rate, a rough draft of a work of breathing assessment tool was formulated.
","abstract_html":"<p>Critical care nurses are often required to assess a patient’s work of breathing and make clinical decisions based on their findings. There is currently no objective work of breathing assessment tool available. The purpose of this descriptive study was to discover how nurses conceptually describe and assess work of breathing and how they then make objective clinical decisions based on those assessments. Convenience and purposive sampling generated 69 return-by-mail surveys from critical and acute care nurses throughout the country. Descriptive statistics determined frequency distribution and central tendency of the responses. Based on the most popular responses of how nurses describe work of breathing, including use of accessory muscles, ability to speak, pursed lip breathing and respiratory rate, a rough draft of a work of breathing assessment tool was formulated.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Nymann, Randee"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science","degree_level":"Master's Thesis","degree_discipline":"Nursing","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Luanne Linnard-Palmer, EdD, RN"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2003,"date_issued":"2003-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2003-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:06:14Z","subjects":["Nursing"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://scholar.dominican.edu/nursing-masters-theses/10","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Luanne Linnard-Palmer, EdD, RN"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Nymann, Randee"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Nursing"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Master's Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Nursing"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholar.dominican.edu/nursing-masters-theses/10"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Critical care nurses are often required to assess a patient’s work of breathing and make clinical decisions based on their findings. There is currently no objective work of breathing assessment tool available. The purpose of this descriptive study was to discover how nurses conceptually describe and assess work of breathing and how they then make objective clinical decisions based on those assessments. Convenience and purposive sampling generated 69 return-by-mail surveys from critical and acute care nurses throughout the country. Descriptive statistics determined frequency distribution and central tendency of the responses. Based on the most popular responses of how nurses describe work of breathing, including use of accessory muscles, ability to speak, pursed lip breathing and respiratory rate, a rough draft of a work of breathing assessment tool was formulated.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Work of Breathing: Development of a Construct"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Luanne Linnard-Palmer, EdD, RN"],"dc:creator":["Nymann, Randee"],"dc:description.abstract":["Critical care nurses are often required to assess a patient’s work of breathing and make clinical decisions based on their findings. There is currently no objective work of breathing assessment tool available. The purpose of this descriptive study was to discover how nurses conceptually describe and assess work of breathing and how they then make objective clinical decisions based on those assessments. Convenience and purposive sampling generated 69 return-by-mail surveys from critical and acute care nurses throughout the country. Descriptive statistics determined frequency distribution and central tendency of the responses. Based on the most popular responses of how nurses describe work of breathing, including use of accessory muscles, ability to speak, pursed lip breathing and respiratory rate, a rough draft of a work of breathing assessment tool was formulated.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://scholar.dominican.edu/nursing-masters-theses/10"],"dc:subject":["Nursing"],"dc:title":["Work of Breathing: Development of a Construct"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Nursing"],"thesis:degree_level":["Master's Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:06:14Z"}