Effects of pressure ulcer prevention training among nurses in long-term care hospitals

Abstract

Background: Nurses caring for elderly patients with a high risk of pressure ulcer at long-term care hospitals require the necessary knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes regarding preventing pressure ulcers. Objectives: To identify the effects of pressure ulcer prevention training on nurses' knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes regarding pressure ulcer prevention. Design: A comparison group pretest-posttest design. Settings: Long-term care hospitals in a metropolitan area of the Republic of Korea. Participants: Participants were conveniently assigned to team-based learning (n = 30) or lecture-based learning (n = 30) groups. Methods: We examined pre-post differences in the scores for pressure ulcer prevention knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes in each group using the paired t-test. Additionally, pre-post difference scores were compared between the two groups using the independent samples t-test. Results: Both groups exhibited significant increases in scores for pressure ulcer prevention knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes after the intervention as compared before it. However, we found no significant differences in the pre-post difference scores for any of the variables between the two groups. Conclusions: Pressure ulcer prevention training, regardless of whether it utilizes team-based or lecture-based learning, is useful for enhancing nurses' pressure ulcer prevention knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes. Further study is needed to verify the longitudinal effects of pressure ulcer prevention training on nurses' actual performance and the incidence of pressure ulcers among patients. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd