Effectiveness of Planned Teaching Program on Knowledge and Practice Regarding Intravenous Therapy among Paediatric Nurses

Introduction: Peripheral intravenous therapy is one of the most frequently used therapeutic interventions in the acute care setting. Paediatric intravenous cannulation is a fundamental part of medication and practised in almost every health care setting. Intravenous therapy is used to treat a wide variety of paediatric conditions. Although most hospitalised children receive intravenous (i.v.) therapy daily, treatment extends beyond this population to Out Patient (OP) settings, long term care and home care for the infusion of fluids, blood products, and medications. Aim: To assess the effectiveness of planned teaching program on knowledge and practice regarding intravenous therapy among paediatric nurses. Materials and Methods: The present pre-experimental,quantitative, non randomised, one group pre and post test design study was conducted in Paediatric Ward, Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of ‘G’ block, Sri Ramachandra Hospital (SRH), Porur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India from 11th July 2016 to 20th August 2016. Self administered questionnaire and observational checklist was used to collect data about knowledge and practice respectively. Non probability purposive sampling technique was used to select the 30 staff nurses working in the paediatric department with less than one year of experience. Results: The difference between the mean post-test knowledge score (M=16.20, SD=2.041) and pretest knowledge score (M=7.43, SD=2.254) of paediatric staff nurses was highly significant (p-value <0.001) and the computed t-value was t=26.7. The difference between the mean post-test practice score (M=15.13, SD=2.063) and pretest mean practice score (M=10.70, SD=2.380) was also highly significant (p-value <0.001) and the computed t-value was t=8.215. Conclusion: The present study shows that there was a significant difference in the mean scores of knowledge and practice between pretest and post-test after the planned teaching program intervention at the level of paediatric nurses (p