{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01837270341207349, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0017497812773403325, 'mean_word_length': 5.729411764705882, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Effect of Psychoacoustic Learning on Cardiac Auscultation Proficiency in Nurse Practitioner Students

Background Assessment is a vital role of all nurses, yet cardiac murmur identification remains difficult for students. Cardiac auscultation is a technical, not intellectual, skill, and a psychoacoustic approach to learning is recommended. A psychoacoustic approach involves repetition of cardiac sounds to facilitate auditory perceptual learning. Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a psychoacoustic learning modality for identification of cardiac murmurs by nurse practitioner (NP) students. Methods A repeated-measures design was used. Following a pretest, NP students listened to repetitions of heart sounds, then took a posttest. Students were instructed to listen to the heart sounds weekly, then given posttests at 1 and 3 months. Results All posttest scores were higher than pretest scores; no significant difference in scores was noted between posttests. Conclusions Psychoacoustic learning may improve cardiac assessment. Further research is recommended with prelicensure nursing and NP students.