The effect of an educational intervention on perioperative registered nurse's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards pressure injury prevention in surgical patients.

BACKGROUND: Pressure injuries continue to be a significant problem in perioperative patients. Surgical patients are particularly at risk due to lack of mobility and sensation during surgery and the early recovery period. The AORN (2024) recommends that healthcare organizations develop a comprehensive prevention program that includes risk assessment, prevention, and education. OBJECTIVES: To measure the effect of an educational intervention on perioperative nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards pressure injury prevention after one week and again after six months. METHODS: Nurse's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors were measured at three different time periods using quantitative nonexperimental pretest posttest longitudinal design. Three hundred fifty-four perioperative registered nurses from 11 acute care hospitals participated. RESULTS: Nurses' knowledge scores were in the moderate range. Statistically significant differences were found between pre-test and posttest 1 scores, indicating that knowledge improved after nurses completed the education intervention and information was retained six months after. Nurses' attitudes were neither positive nor negative towards pressure injury prevention. Regarding behavior, the majority of nurses reported carrying out pressure injury prevention strategies, however only half reported carrying out daily risk assessment strategies. CONCLUSIONS: To prevent pressure injury in perioperative patients, it is imperative that guidelines for the prevention of perioperative pressure injury (AORN, 2024) are integrated into nursing practice.

Perioperative registered nurses knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and barriers regarding pressure ulcer prevention in perioperative patients.

BACKGROUND: Hospital acquired pressure ulcers have a detrimental effect on patient quality of life, morbidity, mortality, and cost to the healthcare industry. Little is known about pressure ulcer prevention in perioperative services. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to describe perioperative registered nurses (RNs) knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and barriers about pressure ulcer prevention and to determine if knowledge and the availability of a pressure ulcer staging tool are predictors of pressure ulcer prevention behavior. METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive pilot study was conducted. Sixty-two perioperative RNs from 10 acute care hospitals participated. RESULTS: Perioperative nurses believed carrying out pressure ulcer prevention strategies is essential to nursing practice but only two-thirds reported conducting pressure ulcer risk assessment on all patients and daily assessment on at risk patients. Results indicated a knowledge deficit regarding assessment and prevention of pressure ulcers as performance on the PUKT (72%) fell below the recommended score of 90%. Results of binary logistic regression indicated that knowledge as measured by the PUKT and availability of a pressure ulcer staging tool were statistically significant (p=0.03) predictors of pressure ulcer prevention behavior. The initial model without the predictor variables, indicated an overall success rate of correct predictions of 64% which increase to 73% when the predictor variables were added to the initial model. CONCLUSIONS: Although perioperative nurses believe that pressure ulcer prevention is important, a knowledge deficit exists and there is a need for pressure ulcer prevention education.