Effect of Educational Program on Nurses' Knowledge, Practices and Patients' Outcomes Post Total Knee Arthroplasty

Abstract

Context: Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a surgical procedure in which the damaged parts of the patient's kneecap, thighbone, and shinbone are replaced with artificial parts.
Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of an educational program on nurses' knowledge, practices, and patients' outcomes post total knee arthroplasty.
Methods: A quasi-experimental design was utilized in the orthopedic department and outpatient orthopedic clinic affiliated to Benha University Hospital from the beginning of July 2020 to the end of June 2021. A convenience sample of all available nurses (50) working in the orthopedic department. A purposive sample of 64 adult patients from both genders was divided into (32) control and (32) study groups. Three tools were used: The nurses' knowledge assessment questionnaire, nurses' practice observational checklist, and patient’ outcomes assessment sheet.
Results: The present study revealed that 58% of nurses age was from 40 to less than 60 years old, 92% were females, 66% had secondary nursing education, 28 % of studied nurses had total satisfactory knowledge pre-program implementation, which reached 80%, 58 %, respectively immediately after and in follow up of program implementation. 22% of studied nurses had a competent level of practice scores pre-program implementation, which improved to 82%, 74 %, respectively, immediately after and in follow up of program implementation. There were highly statistically significant differences between study and control group patients regarding the frequency of most of the general and local complication and lower extremity function scale after two weeks and one month post-surgery at p-value<0.00.
Conclusion: Implementing the educational program had statistically significantly improved the knowledge and practices of the studied nurses that could reflect positively on patient condition. The study recommended a continuous educational program for all nurses working in the orthopedic departments. Further study to search the correlation between the nurses' performance and the patient outcomes is recommended.