Assessment of preparedness for emergency cesarean section by utilizing a checklist before and after an educational...

Using cognitive aids, like checklists, for clinical practices will significantly improve the quality of patient care and thereby reduce morbidities and mortalities. We used one such checklist to assess preparedness for emergency cesarean sections. Sixty-five emergency cesarean sections were assessed in the baseline period without informing the residents and other operating room staff. We then conducted educational intervention sessions for residents of obstetrics and anesthesiology and for nursing officers on the significance of each step in the checklist, focusing on the steps that were often missed. The checklist had 22 actions. The mean percentage of each checklist action in all 65 assessments was computed. The average of these values was the overall percentage of completed actions in 65 assessments, which was 78.80%. In the post-intervention period, this increased to 92.48%. The results of our study indicate that residents understood the importance of each checklist action and it reflects their positive attitude towards improving patient care. Although we did not measure our intervention in terms of patient outcomes, our assessment has helped us identify lacunae in our hospital practice.