TITLE:
Knowledge and performance among nurses before and after a training programme on patient falls
AUTHORS:
Nagwa Younes Abou El Enein, Azza Saad Abd El Ghany, Ashraf Ahmad Zaghloul
KEYWORDS:
Patient Falls; Nurse Knowledge; Performance; Quasi-Experimental Design
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.2 No.4,
December
19,
2012
ABSTRACT: Background: Patient falls in hospitals are common and affect approximately 2% to 17% of patients during their hospital stay. Patient falls are a nursingsensitive quality indicator in the delivery of inpatient services. Objective: To assess the effect of educational training program on nurses’ knowledge and performance regarding prevention of fall at one of the health insurance organization hospitals in Alexandria. Setting: The study was conducted at 284 bed general hospital affiliated with the Health Insurance Organization in Alexandria. Design: A quasi-experimental design was followed. Participants: The study sample included all nurses of different ranks working at four departments namely, orthopedic, medical, surgical, ICU unit. Results: There was a significant difference regarding all factors under study before and after the educational programme except for two individual factors, old age (p = 0.84), overall poor health status (p = 0.38), and two health factors, uses aids (p = 0.50), treatment by heparin (p = 1.00), and two environmental factors, poor lighting (p = 0.34), loose cords or wires (p = 0.30) and bells (p = 0.30), and one miscellaneous factor, patient education (p = 0.85) and tidy environment(p = 0.85). All departments showed posttest performance improvement, the total performance median for departments regarding environmental factor (p = 0.04) and health education (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Education programmes should be regularly, updated in view of changing knowledge and work practices.