Impact Of An Educational Program On Nurses' Practice Related To Care Of Patients With Chest Tube

Chest tube is a widely applied therapeutic postsurgical intervention in respiratory and cardiothoracic care. Chest tube can be a life saving intervention for patients presenting with pneumothoraces, effusions and hemothoraces. It is however associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The study aimed  to evaluate the impact of an educational program on nurses' practice related to care of patients with chest tube. A quasi-experimental design was used in the current study. The study was carried out on a convenient sample of 30 nurses working in intensive cardiothoracic unit, cardiothoracic care unit, and general surgical unit at Ismailia University Hospital. Data were obtained through; Nurses^, chest tube performance observationchecklist. The educational program was designed based on an extensive revision of the related materials, recent medical textbooks, studies and literature. Results of this study indicated that all studied nurses (100.0%) had statistically significant unsatisfactory level of practice pre program implementation. The statistically significant level of improvement in nurses' practice was very high immediately after the program implementation and there was decline in the studied nurses' total practice scores  throughout the first follow –up and second follow up after program implementation  but it showed significant improvement than pretest(P<0.0001***, P=1.0, P=0.031* respectively) . The study concluded that there was statistically significant improvement immediately after program implementation and throughout the follow up phases regarding nurses' practice related to care of patients with chest tube. The study recommended thatregular continuous educational program should be designed to give information about chest tube for enhancing and reinforcement of nurses' practice to achieve high quality care.