Date of Conferral
2-19-2025
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
School
Nursing
Advisor
Joan Hahn
Abstract
This staff education project aimed to determine if an educational program would improve nurses’ knowledge of basic ostomy care in a surgical unit. Nurses in the surgical unit lack the knowledge and skills to perform proper ostomy care. Regardless of the years of experience, nurses may lose skills over time if they do not refresh their knowledge on basic ostomy care. The PICO (population, intervention, comparison, and outcome) question for this project was as follows: Does participation in an educational program focused on basic ostomy care improve the ostomy knowledge of staff nurses working on a surgical unit? This project focused on educating surgical nurses on the basics of ostomy care. A PowerPoint presentation was used as a visual description of ostomy care along with hands-on learning using ostomy appliances. A pre-and-post-test design was used to determine the project's outcomes. Results from the pre- and posttests showed improvement in knowledge following a 45-minute educational program. Descriptive statistics showed improvement in test scores in the posttests. The Wilcoxon signed rank nonparametric test showed a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores (p value < 0.05). Nurses also verbalized satisfaction with the educational program. The outcomes of this project showed the need for frequent ostomy education and refresher courses. The availability of staff education to improve knowledge among nurses has potential to improve patients’ experiences and quality of life, leading to a positive social change.
Recommended Citation
Trajcevski, Angela, "Implementation of an Educational Program to Improve Nurses’ Knowledge of Basic Ostomy Care" (2025). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 17393.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/17393