The effect of in-service education on emergency nurses' documentation of physical assessment.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a staff education program on the documentation skills of registered nurses in the emergency department.


METHODS
A quasiexperimental posttest design was used in this project.


METHODS
We conducted classes based on the Emergency Nurses Association's (ENA) Core Curriculum and focused on documentation of neurologic, abdominal, pulmonary, and cardiac assessments. Twenty emergency nurses attended the classes. ED charts were reviewed according to ENA assessment priorities criteria 3 months after the class. Two hundred ED charts completed by registered nurses who attended the classes were compared with 200 ED charts completed by a comparison group of 20 registered nurses who did not attend the classes.


RESULTS
Treatment group registered nurses documented significantly more of the ENA criteria in each system area than did the registered nurses in the comparison group.


CONCLUSIONS
Findings from this study support the importance of continued staff education in the improvement of emergency nurses' documentation of patient assessment.
Cone
K J
KJ
Emergency Department, St. Francis Medical Center, Bloomington, Illinois, USA.
Anderson
M A
MA
Johnson
J A
JA
D000328:Adult; D004509:Education, Nursing, Continuing; D016529:Emergency Nursing / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D008297:Male; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D009737:Nursing Records; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000193:education*