• BMC medical education · Jan 2015

    The effect of an e-learning course on nursing staff's knowledge of delirium: a before-and-after study.

    • Lotte van de Steeg, Roelie IJkema, Cordula Wagner, and Maaike Langelaan.
    • NIVEL Netherlands institute for health services research, Utrecht, the Netherlands. l.vandesteeg@nivel.nl.
    • BMC Med Educ. 2015 Jan 1; 15: 12.

    BackgroundDelirium is a common condition in hospitalized patients, associated with adverse outcomes such as longer hospital stay, functional decline and higher mortality, as well as higher rates of nursing home placement. Nurses often fail to recognize delirium in hospitalized patients, which might be due to a lack of knowledge of delirium diagnosis and treatment. The objective of the study was to test the effectiveness of an e-learning course on nurses' delirium knowledge, describe nursing staff's baseline knowledge about delirium, and describe demographic factors associated with baseline delirium knowledge and the effectiveness of the e-learning course.MethodsA before-and-after study design, using an e-learning course on delirium. The course was introduced to all nursing staff of internal medicine and surgical wards of 17 Dutch hospitals.Results1,196 invitations for the e-learning course were sent to nursing staff, which included nurses, nursing students and healthcare assistants. Test scores on the final knowledge test (mean 87.4, 95% CI 86.7 to 88.2) were significantly higher than those on baseline (mean 79.3, 95% CI 78.5 to 80.1). At baseline, nursing staff had the most difficulty with questions related to the definition of delirium: what are its symptoms, course, consequences and which patients are at risk. The mean score for this category was 74.3 (95% CI 73.1 to 75.5).ConclusionsThe e-learning course significantly improved nursing staff's knowledge of delirium in all subgroups of participants and for all question categories. Contrary to other studies, the baseline knowledge assessment showed that, overall, nursing staff was relatively knowledgeable regarding delirium.Trial RegistrationThe Netherlands National Trial Register (NTR).Trial NumberNTR 2885 , 19 April 2011.

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