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Background
In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated the Core Elements
of Hospital Antimicrobial Stewardship Program guidelines. As part of the update, a
greater emphasis is placed on the role of nurses in improving antibiotic stewardship
(AS). Currently, there is minimal research that has looked at nurses’ attitudes/beliefs
towards AS. Potential reasons could include lack of education about stewardship, poor
communication among providers, hospital/unit culture, concern for additional work,
and perception of it being not part of their scope of practice. The objectives of
this project are to identify nurses’ true attitudes toward AS, to discover the usefulness
of the modules, and to determine the effectiveness of the modules in changing nurses’
attitudes towards AS.
Methods
Three short eLearning modules (Antimicrobial Stewardship for Nursing, Pharmacy Topics
for Nursing, and Laboratory Topics for Nursing) and a survey were developed for acute
care hospital nurses. The nurses were asked to view the three eLearning modules and
then complete an online survey. Twenty-eight nurses completed the survey. An analysis
was done on the results.
Results
The results of the survey showed that eighty-two percent of nurses felt they should
participate in AS work. Seventy-three percent felt more empowered to participate in
AS discussions. One hundred percent said that the information could be used in their
everyday work. Twenty-three percent wanted more education. Nurses cited lack of education
(41%) and hospital/unit culture (27%) as barriers to participating in AS.
Conclusions
Although the sample size was small, the survey showed that the majority of nurses
want to be a part of the AS team. The modules were effective in educating them and
the results suggests that short eLearning modules may be a good first step in engaging
nurses in AS. The study is ongoing.
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Copyright
© 2020 Published by Elsevier Inc.
