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theses

Early mobility initiatives are documented throughout the literature as a way to improve patients' physiological and functional status both during an intensive care admission as well as after discharge from an acute care setting. This project examined whether targeted re-education on early mobility and review of the project site's existing early mobility protocol improved the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of the bedside critical care nurse. A review of literature was conducted using the Rutgers University Health Sciences online library, specifically EBSCO host, CINAHL, Clinical Key, Web of Science, and PubMed. This project took place in a 10-bed medical ICU and 22-bed surgical ICU in northern New Jersey. Intensive care bedside nurses were given a modified version of Hoyer, et al. (2015) perceived barriers to early mobility survey tool before and after a brief education session. A total of 54 nurses were needed and 32 agreed to participate (n=32), resulting in a 59% response rate. Demographic information included the nurses' primary unit as well as years of critical care nursing experience. Questions were grouped into the subcategories of knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used to compare the medians of each answer grouping and found a statistically significant change in attitudes (p=0.022) between groups when all results were considered. Sub-analysis did not yield statistically significant results, although positive change was noted in all groups except MICU. This corresponds to the KAB framework which states that changes in attitude result from knowledge, and ultimately behavior change occurs over time.

ETD_9609

DNP

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-pjph-kn42

ETD doctoral

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