Case management educational intervention with public health nurses: cluster randomized controlled trial

Abstract

This paper is a report of a study conducted to determine the effectiveness of a community case management collaborative education intervention in terms of satisfaction, learning and performance among public health nurses. Previous evaluation studies of case management continuing professional education often failed to demonstrate effectiveness across a range of outcomes and had methodological weaknesses such as small convenience samples and lack of control groups. A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted between September 2005 and February 2006. Ten health centre clusters (five control, five intervention) recruited 163 public health nurses in Taiwan to the trial. After pre-tests for baseline measurements, public health nurses in intervention centres received an educational intervention of four half-day workshops. Post-tests for both groups were conducted after the intervention. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance was performed to evaluate the effect of the intervention on target outcomes. A total of 161 participants completed the pre- and post-intervention measurements. This was almost a 99% response rate. Results revealed that 97% of those in the experimental group were satisfied with the programme. There were statistically significant differences between the two groups in knowledge (P = 0.001), confidence in case management skills (P = 0.001), preparedness for case manager role activities (P = 0.001), self-reported frequency in using skills (P = 0.001) and role activities (P = 0.004). Collaboration between academic and clinical nurses is an effective strategy to prepare nurses for rapidly changing roles.