Bedside Clinical Teaching of Nursing Officers- A Boon in Patient Management

Abstract

Introduction: Traditionally nursing officers, especially in developing country like India, are taken as channel to distribute medicines and preparing vital charts like input and output chart, temperature and pulse rate chart etc. The Nursing officers who work in transplant centres, especially in Intensive care unit are groomed in a way, so that they are able to interpret even small complaints or changes in vital parameters of patients, thus bringing it immediately into the knowledge of treating team, leading to better management of patient.
Aims and Objectives: To do bedside teaching of nursing officers on clinical rounds for one year and determine improvement in their approach towards patient management.
Materials & Methods: It was prospective study conducted at Department of Medical Gastroenterology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak, over a period of one year from 1st January, 2024 to 31st December, 2024. During this period thirteen nursing officers were given bed side teaching during clinical rounds on daily basis. They were explained about the concerned patient disease aetiology, pathogenesis, clinical presentation, diagnostic investigations and treatment, thus completing full cycle of management. A pre-test and post -test after one year of bed side teaching was done, regarding assessment of improvement in their approach towards the patient care.
Results: A pretest containing one hundred questions related to various aspects of patient management including diseases, diagnostic investigations, drugs and prognosis was taken and after one year of continuous bed side teaching post-test of same one hundred questions were taken and improvement was assessed. In all the thirteen nursing officers, there was significant improvement in the post-test score. The pre-test score varied between 50-65, post- test score ranged between 69-85. In all the thirteen nursing officers, there was significant improvement in the post-test which varied from 15-25 with mean improvement of 19.76.
Conclusion: In a developing country like India where there is shortage of trained doctors, thus it is not feasible to achieve the required doctor-patient ratio. Hence, it becomes more important to train the available health care workers which include Nursing officers which lead to better patient management and improved outcome.