Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Abstract

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is the third most common vascular disease and includes approximately 900,000 cases annually in the United States. It is commonly a problem in critical care and surgical patients, although all patients are at risk of experiencing VTE. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to enhance education regarding VTE prophylaxis for registered nurses on a medical-surgical inpatient unit at a hospital in the Midwest. This study was initiated due to one nurse’s perception that staff on a medical-surgical unit in a hospital in the Midwest lacked confidence and expertise on the importance of VTE prophylaxis interventions. Participants completed a VTE knowledge pretest, followed by an educational intervention on VTE prophylaxis utilizing Health Stream. After the intervention, participants completed a VTE knowledge posttest. The study had a total of 19 participants and good variability of demographic information. Based on the results, the null hypothesis was rejected. There was a statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest means (t= -9.795, df=18, p<.001), which was less than the alpha value (p< .05). The VTE educational intervention significantly increased the nurses’ knowledge about VTE prophylaxis. The nurses gained an average of 28.316% points on the posttest after completing the educational intervention. This supports the hypothesis that the educational intervention increased the nurses’ knowledge of VTE prophylaxis. It is imperative that nurses and the health care team recognize the risk and significance of VTE. More staff education regarding VTE prophylaxis can lead to better patient outcomes.

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