The effect of an educational intervention to improve orthopaedic nurses' knowledge of delirium: A quasi-experimental study.

BACKGROUND

Lack of delirium knowledge and its clinical repercussions contributes to the absence of delirium prevention activities in routine clinical practice.

AIM

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a delirium awareness educational program on nurses' knowledge about delirium prevention and management.

METHODS

A quasi-experimental (pre-intervention, post-intervention test) design was used to test the effectiveness of an educational intervention using a knowledge survey.

RESULTS

There was no difference in the knowledge scores between the 2 periods for domains 1, 2 3 and 4. However, the median (IQR) knowledge scores for domain 5 (risk factors) and domain 6 (recognising delirium) was higher at post-intervention compared to pre-intervention.

CONCLUSION

A multi-step educational intervention had a positive but small impact on nurses' knowledge of delirium. However, the training was not mandatory and uptake of the training was not as high as hoped. Most nurses preferred ward-based education - combination of formal knowledge delivery and informal practice discussion. Future studies should focus on programs which are ward-based including various of teaching styles.