Intervention to improve acute care nurses confidence and knowledge in hospital dementia care.

ABSTRACT

PROBLEM: Acute care nurses are the front line of hospital care for persons with dementia (PwD), yet many have inadequate dementia education and lack the confidence to appropriately manage PwD in the hospital setting. IMPLEMENTATION Two acute care units with high rates of PwD in a large tertiary-care hospital were provided an education intervention involving interactive case-based discussion of the challenges of inpatient dementia care. RESULTS: Out of 190 nurses, 171 completed a one-hour virtual educational session, 142 completed pre/post-session confidence surveys, and 123 completed pre/post-session knowledge tests. There was a statistically significant improvement in knowledge scores from 75.8% pre-session to 88.4% post-session (p < 0.001), and pre/post-session dementia care confidence increased from 3.49 to 4.44 ( + 27.22%; p < 0.001) CONCLUSION: An interactive virtual education intervention improves acute care nurses' confidence and knowledge in managing PwD in the acute care setting and may improve hospital outcomes for this population.