Improving the quality of pre-operative nursing care in the operating room through participatory action research at the community hospital Chon Buri

Abstract

This proposal of participatory action research of quality improvement in pre-operative nursing care was conducted in a community hospital in Chon-Buri province.The aim of the study were to 1) investigate the situation in the pre-operative nursingservice within the operation room, Phanat Nikhom hospital; 2) decrease duplication ofpreoperative nursing care among preoperative and anesthetic nurses; 3) decreaseincidence of postponing or cancellations of operation; and 4) increase patientsatisfaction forward preoperative nursing care.Six perioperative nurses / and four anesthetic nurses participated in the study.The study was divided into two phases. The first phase included situation analysis ofpreoperative nursing services, formulation of nursing management direction andguideline composed of vision, mission, value, purpose statement, scope of care, processof service, and investigation of opportunity & problem for improvement in preoperativenursing care. The second phase was the participatory action research. This phasecomposed of identification of problem, causes and the consequences of poorpreoperative nursing care quality; planning for focus group discussion and “try out”.Data collection was conducted through brainstorming, focus group discussion andsecondary data. Data were then examined using methodological triangulation andanalysed by grouping, interpreting and summarization of data. The results indicated that the participatory action search enable the nursing teamto identify problems and their causes; then together planning to solve the problems,putting the plans into practice , reflecting and feedback on the practice and monitoringthe plans. This led to a quality nursing care received by patients. Thus, it can be appliedfor quality improvement in operative nursing and in postoperative nursing to ensurecontinuity of nursing care as well as in other areas of nursing care.