The Effect of a Teaching Program on Knowledge, Practice, and Response Time of Nurses Regarding the Management of Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Gastrointestinal bleeding is one of the emergencies that all therapeutic measures should be performed effectively and efficiently in a short time. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of an educational program on the improvement of nurses' knowledge, performance, and response time in the care of patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding in the Emergency Department. 

This quasi-experimental study employed a single group pre-test and post-test design and was conducted at the Emergency Room of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), New Delhi, India. A total of 20 nurses working in the Emergency Room were recruited through enumeration. Also, 35 events before and 35 events after the intervention were observed. The educational program was implemented through face-to-face lecture-cum discussion in six 30-minute sessions and groups of 3 to 4 nurses over three days. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to measure nurses’ knowledge regarding upper gastrointestinal bleeding, and their performance and response time were observed and calculated through a checklist. The data were described and analyzed using descriptive statistics, the paired t-test, the Kruskal-Wallis H test, and the Mann-Whitney U test in SPSS software, version 20. The significance level was set at P≤0.05. 

A noticeable improvement in the scores of knowledge and performance and a significant decrease in the nurses’ response time were observed (P<0.001). Also, there was a significant relationship between the knowledge score and the work experience of nurses in the Emergency Department (P=0.018).

Periodic evaluation of nurses’ performance in the care and treatment of upper gastrointestinal bleeding emergencies through observation and checklist is recommended. In-service training courses regarding managing upper gastrointestinal bleeding seem to be necessary.