Effectiveness of time out procedure protocol on knowledge and skill regarding patient safety among operating room nurses at selected hospitals, Chennai

BACKGROUND: Patient safety is a discipline that emphasize safety culture in health care through the prevention, reduction, reporting, and analyzing of medical and surgical error that often leads to adverse effects. AIM AND OBJECTIVE: To assess and compare the effectiveness of time out procedure protocol on knowledge and skill regarding patient safety among operating room nurses. METHODOLOGY: A Pre - experimental post test only design and a Quantitative approach was adopted to assess the effectiveness of time out procedure protocol on knowledge and skill regarding patient safety among 60 operating room (OR) nurses (30) each in study and control group, who were working as a OR nurse holds > 6 months of working experience at SIMS Hospital, Vadapalani and Nungambakkam, Chennai. Lottery method was used to divide the setting. Need assessment was performed and OR nurses who scored ≥ 3/6 and who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria using non - probability purposive sampling technique were selected as samples. Timeout procedure protocol was administered and the level of knowledge and skill was assessed by using structured knowledge questionnaire and observational checklist. RESULTS: The study findings revealed that the post test mean knowledge score was 14.60 with SD of 2.66 in study group and 9.40 with SD of 1.93 in control group, and their post test mean skill score was 9.77 with SD of 1.17 in study group and 4.63 with SD. 1.82 in control group. The calculated student independent ‘t’ value (8.66 and 12.96) for knowledge and skill among the study and control group. indicates that there was a very high statistical significance at p < 0.001. CONCLUSION: The results unfolds that the time out procedure protocol was effective in improving the knowledge and skill regarding timeout procedure in OR and can be utilized as a tool to evaluate the knowledge and skill of OR nurses