Effectiveness of an Educational Program on Nurses’ Knowledge Toward Prevention of Neonatal Mechanical Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia

Abstract

Background: Responsibility of preventive strategies and newborns care on mechanical ventilation lie with nurse. Nurses are one of the main resources in health care that directly influence patient health care. Since nurses are always with patients and look after them, they have a positive effect on newborns’ ventilation care and prevention of side effects. Therefore, it is expected that they play an important role in the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Objective(s): To evaluate the effectiveness of an educational program on nurses’ knowledge toward prevention of neonatal mechanical ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Methodology: A quasi-experimental study design for study and control group is carried out evaluation the effectiveness of an educational program on nurse’s knowledge toward neonatal mechanical ventilator -associated pneumonia, the study is carried out through the application of pre-test, post-test 1 and post-test 2 approach for the study and control groups. The period of the study was initiated from 26 December 2022 to 31 March 2023. A non-probability “purposive” sample was selected from Medical City in Baghdad City had been consisting of 50 Nurses. The size of sample is 50 nurses divided into two groups each one consisting of 25 nurses as the study group and 25 nurses as the control group. The study was exposed to an educational program while the control group was not exposed to the program. The data was obtained by the researcher utilizing a constructive knowledge questionnaire, which was then responded to through interviews with closed-ended structured questions. During the morning and evening shifts, the nurses were tested on their knowledge. Each nurse was given about (10-15) minutes to complete the test. The data of the present study were analyzed through the use of the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version (26).

Results: the findings present that analysis of RM-ANOVA test indicates that educational program was highly effective on nurses’ knowledge among the study group evidenced by high significance associated with “Greenhouse-Geisser” correction at p-value=0.001 and the Eta squared that indicate large size effect. It is clear from descriptive data that the noticeable increase of mean score on nurses’ knowledge during post-test 1 and 2 that indicate the effectiveness of educational program.

Conclusion: Regarding “concepts about prevention of neonatal ventilator-associated pneumonia” domain, nurses showed good level of knowledge after posttest. The educational program is effective and produced the desired improvement in nursing knowledge about Prevention of Neonatal Ventilator- associated Pneumonia.

Recommendations: The educational program is recommended to be applied in other health care facilities to optimize nurses’ base of knowledge and practice. Updating the Prevention of Neonatal Ventilator- associated Pneumonia standards and guidelines regularly to achieve the best health care quality possible in the Iraqi hospitals.