In pediatric intensive care, an arterial cannula is used in critically ill patients when the circulatory status is unstable. The arterial cannula is inserted into an artery that allows reliable monitoring of continuous blood pressure and repeated blood sampling. Continuous invasive monitoring of blood pressure complements the assessment of the patient's clinical condition.

The purpose of the thesis was to produce an instructional video on the use of the arterial cannula in intensive care for children for educational use at the advanced stage of nursing at Oulu University of Applied Sciences. The aim was to create a high-quality, up-to-date, and informative instructional video that increases the skills of nursing students in the use of an arterial cannula in intensive care for children. The database of the bachelor thesis includes the purpose of the arterial cannula, installation, handling, sampling, complications, and removal. The knowledge base consists of national and international nursing literature, research, and articles. The databases used were mainly Terveysportti, Oppiportti, and nursing literature.

The thesis was commissioned by Oulu University of Applied Sciences and was implemented as a functional thesis. In the first stage of the functional thesis, a project plan was drawn up. During the implementation phase, a script for the instructional video was made and the video was filmed and edited. The instructional video was restricted to children under one year of age. The video covered the indications for the arterial cannula, the cannulation sites, the necessary cannulation equipment, the preparation of the heparin flush into the syringe, the filling of the pressure measuring circuit, the resetting and determination of the measurement level, the blood sampling from the arterial cannula by a closed method and the care of the cannula. The instructional video was uploaded to YouTube and a link was given to Oulu University of Applied Sciences teachers for educational use.

Feedback from the target group was collected from the instructional video using a Webropol survey. N = 17 responded to the Webropol survey. Based on the feedback received, the instructional video met the quality objectives. As a further development challenge, based on the development ideas of the feedback survey, the instructional video could be developed into a more detailed one. In addition, the extension of the instructional video to children of different ages and the wider use of the video were considered.