An educational intervention to evaluate nurses’ knowledge of heart failure

Background: Nurses are the main providers of patient education in inpatient and outpatient settings. Unfortunately, nurses may lack knowledge of chronic medical conditions, such as heart failure. Method: The purpose of this one-group pretest– posttest intervention was to determine the effectiveness of teaching intervention on nurses’ knowledge of heart failure self-care principles in an ambulatory care setting. The sample consisted of 40 staff nurses in ambulatory care. Nurse participants received a focused education intervention based on knowledge deficits revealed in the pretest and were then resurveyed within 30 days. Nurses were evaluated using the valid and reliable 20-item Nurses Knowledge of Heart Failure Education Principles Survey tool. Results: The results of this project demonstrated that an education intervention on heart failure self-care principles improved nurses’ knowledge of heart failure in an ambulatory care setting, which was statistically significant (p, .05). Conclusion: Results suggest that a teaching intervention could improve knowledge of heart failure, which could lead to better patient education and could reduce patient readmission for heart failure.