NURSES' UNDERSTANDING OF MICROBIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS AND COMPUTERIZED SURVEILLANCE DATA: ENHANCING PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE.
Contributors: University of Pennsylvania.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 235
Subjects: Education, Health.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Biology, Microbiology.
Description: The purpose of this research study was to explore whether Registered Professional Nurses, when exposed to an experimental educational intervention, retain the concepts of microbiology from this intervention and can apply these concepts in clinical practice situations. This research also investigated if Registered Professional Nurses understood the data generated by computerized infection control surveillance reports that are based on the McGuckin Method of surveillance.

The design of this research was quasi-experimental. A qualitative dimension was also triangulated into this research project. A convenience sample of 32 Registered Professional Nurses from Shore Memorial Hospital, Somers Point, New Jersey were randomly assigned into one of two different groups. The control group consisted of 15 participants. These participants were given a pretest and posttest with no intervention, at the same time as a comparable experimental group. The experimental group consisted of 17 participants. These participants were given a pretest, an experimental educational intervention that consisted of a simulated patient environment with staged microbiological concepts relating to reservoirs of infection and BOSS surveillance data information, and a posttest. Both groups were also administered the posttest 4 weeks after the initial session in order to determine retention aspects. Computerized surveillance reports were utilized 4 weeks prior to the experiment and 4 weeks after the experiment. These reports were utilized as outcome measures. As the experimental educational intervention is the only medium through which knowledge leading to changed behavior could be acquired, it can be assumed that a noted decrease in the number of positive isolates demonstrated the possible effect of this knowledge intervention.

The questionnaire utilized as the pretest and posttest was designed by this researcher.

All participants from the experimental group were interviewed at the conclusion of this study. Results from these interviews are reported in a narrative fashion.

Implications concerning nursing curriculum and inservice education programs in health care facilities are discussed.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-05, Section: A, page: 1513.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1990.

School code: 0175.