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Evaluation of a fetal monitoring education program
M J Trépanier1, P Niday, B Davies
1Perinatal Education Program of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, Canada.
Objective:
To evaluate the effectiveness of a fetal monitoring education program in increasing nurses' knowledge and clinical skills.
Design:
Multicenter randomized control trial.
Setting:
Twelve hospitals in eastern Ontario, Canada.
Participants:
One hundred nine volunteer registered nurses randomly assigned, within each hospital, to an experimental (n = 47) or control (n = 62) group. Ninety-six nurses (40 in the experimental group and 56 in the control group) completed the 6-month follow-up (88% retention).
Interventions:
The experimental group participated in a 1-day fetal monitoring workshop and a review session 6 months later.
Main Outcome Measures:
Performance on a 45-item knowledge test and a 25-item skills checklist. The passing score was at least 75% correct on each test.
Results:
The percentage of nurses in the experimental group passing both the knowledge and the clinical skills tests after the workshop was significantly higher (p < 0.01) than that of the nurses in the control group: 68.1% versus 6.5%, respectively. A large difference between the groups remained at the 6-month follow-up (experimental, 45%; control, 6.5%). The performance of the nurses in the experimental group improved to an 85% pass rate after they attended the 6-month review session.
Conclusion:
This comprehensive, research-based program is effective in increasing fetal monitoring knowledge and clinical skills.