title: Nurse practitioners and preventive screening in the hospital.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate a reminder to discuss cervical cancer screening with hospitalized females. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the association of a reminder intervention for nurse practitioners with two outcomes: prevalence of cervical cancer screening as documented in patients' charts and patients' self-report of cervical cancer screening 4 months after discharge. Data were collected by chart review and phone survey. The sample consisted of nurse practitioners caring for eligible female patients at a university teaching hospital. Chi-square was used to test all research questions. The rate of documentation of cervical cancer screening increased from 2% to 69% after implementation of the reminder intervention. The reminder intervention did not impact patients actually receiving Pap smears after discharge. The significant increase in documentation of screening associated with the use of the single reminder in the patients' charts support the use of this low-cost intervention.
authors.affiliation: Case Western Reserve University School of Nursing, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
authors.forename: Carol Genet
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Kelley
authors.forename: Barbara J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Daly
authors.forename: Mary K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Anthony
authors.forename: Jaclene A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Zauszniewski
authors.forename: Kurt C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Stange
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D004282:Documentation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008499:Medical Records / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000523:psychology / Q000592:standards*; D024802:Nurse's Role; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D009820:Ohio; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D011322:Primary Prevention / Q000592:standards*; D017010:Reminder Systems / Q000592:standards*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*