Baccalaureate Nursing Students’ Knowledge Gaps of Heart Failure Education Principles
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Full list of poster authors
Conference where poster was previously displayed
Heart Failure Society of America Annual meeting
Poster abstract
Introduction
Over 6 million people in the United States have heart failure (HF) making it one of the most frequent diagnoses seen by practicing nurses. Practice patterns vary despite available clinical practice guidelines. People with HF who are educated in self-care have fewer hospitalizations and better quality of life. However, educational levels of HF principles to promote self-care remain low among nurses in various settings. Students, as future nurses, are a pivotal group to educate to potentially improve outcomes for people with HF. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine student nurses’ knowledge levels of HF educational principles and areas where further education was necessary.
Methods
Institutional Review Board approval was obtained from the university and informed consent from student participants after explaining the study and purposes. Data was collected during one face to face class from students using the 20-item Nurses Knowledge of HF Self-Care Survey. Fifteen items on the survey are true-false and 5 are yes-no questions. Scores range from 0-20 with higher scores suggesting better knowledge of HF educational principles.
Results
Of 90 participants, mean (SD) age was 20.5 (1.1) years, 81% identified as female, 50% lived on campus, 55% had no prior healthcare experience, 40% had experience as a Certified Nursing Assistant/Home Health Aid/nurse technician, 52% reported interest in heart failure. Thirty-five percent identified prior HF education in class with 19% having a family member with HF. Mean HF knowledge score was 14 (2.3). Responses that were most frequently answered correctly were: medication usage and lifestyle modifications (95.6), need for daily weights without symptoms (94.4%), new onset of leg weakness or decreased ability to exercise as a signs of worsening condition (94.4%), new onset of fatigue as a sign of worsening HF (91.1%). Questions students most frequently scored incorrectly: the need to notify a physician with a blood pressure of 80/56 without symptoms (12.2%), need to compare daily weights to ideal weights (21.1%), avoiding NSAIDs and aspirin for pain (30.0%) and no need to notify MD when dizziness is experienced after rising that disappears within five minutes (43.3%).
Conclusions
As future front-line providers, nursing students require education in basic HF principles. Nursing schools must consider education techniques offered to students regarding heart failure. Potential learning barriers, information that is not up-to-date, and the learning environment can affect student’s knowledge. The need to include best clinical practices when educating students can help them achieve better use of this knowledge in practice.