Abstract TP483: Improving Patient Stroke Education by Acute Care Nurses

Abstract

Background and Issues: Patient education is a vital component of preventing a future stroke for survivors of ischemic stroke. Each year, twenty-five percent of strokes diagnosed in the United States are secondary strokes. Hospital-based interventions in the acute phase of care post-stroke can help reduce the likelihood of secondary stroke. Teaching patients tactics for decreasing their stroke risk is one such intervention. Methods: This project utilized the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) quality improvement model. Educational in-services were conducted by the project leader on two nursing units and the float pool. An education initiative was developed using evidence based guidelines to improve nursing knowledge of patient education best-practices and the guidelines from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) & The Joint Commission regarding patient stroke education and documentation. Nursing knowledge before and after the education initiative was evaluated using a pre-test/post-test survey and nursing satisfaction with the education program was evaluated using a Likert survey. Results: Thirty-seven RNs attended the educational in-services and 27 of those completed a pre & post-test. The average improvement seen after the education was 14.7% (pre-test score 73.1%, post-test 87.8%). The RNs rated their satisfaction an average of 4.5 on a 5 point scale. There was no correlation between years of nursing experience and scores on the pre/post-test. This demonstrates the educational initiative was valuable for staff nurses regardless of unit experience. Conclusions: Increasing nursing knowledge and professional competence in delivering and documenting stroke education that is compliant with national guidelines may lead to inpatient nurses providing higher quality stroke education. Understanding risk factors for a second stroke may improve long-term health outcomes for stroke patients and potentially decrease the incidence of secondary stroke. Next steps for this initiative are integration of the education developed in this project into the new RN orientation for the units involved as well as inclusion of the information in ongoing continuing nursing education classes conducted by the clinical site.