Creating A Patient Education Handout For Venting Gastrostomy Catheter Care: A Quality Improvement Project

Author

Sally A. Mathews

Date of Award

5-2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Degree Discipline

Nursing Practice

Abstract

At the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), approximately 200 patients undergo placement of a venting gastrostomy catheter annually (venting G-catheter). About 10% of these patients are later seen in the emergency room (ER) for complications related to venting G-catheters. These complications include leakage, infection, skin irritation, and dislocation that require interventions ranging from topical management to exchange of the catheter. The purpose of this project was to create an MDACC-designed patient education handout regarding the care of venting G-catheters as a means of improving patient care and reinforcing these concepts for clinical nurses, thus improving their knowledge.

The process for creating the patient education handout included four main steps: synthesis of published evidence-based research findings on the care of venting G-catheters for patients with malignant bowel obstruction; review of the MDACC link for baseline information on the number of patient ER visits; conduct of a pilot study to obtain clinical nurses' expert opinions on the care of venting G-catheters; and validation of the handout's readability using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula.

Monthly ER visit rates for venting G-catheter-related complications decreased, from 2.85% of patients with venting G-catheters visiting the ER pre-intervention, to 2.07% visiting the ER post-intervention. This change corresponds to a 28% reduction in ER visits following implementation of the intervention. Survey responses also revealed that the nurses' overall knowledge and awareness regarding use of the patient education handout had improved.

These results demonstrate that the patient education handout developed in this project is a useful tool for communicating patient care information regarding venting G-catheters, particularly with respect to discharged patients.

Committee Chair/Advisor

Abida Solomon

Committee Co-Chair:

Vivian Dawkins

Committee Member

Sharisse Hebert

Committee Member

Jerrel Moore

Publisher

Prairie View A&M University

Rights

Date of Digitization

7-13-2021

Contributing Institution

John B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Prairie View

MIME Type

Application/PDF

Recommended Citation

Mathews, S. A. (2020). Creating A Patient Education Handout For Venting Gastrostomy Catheter Care: A Quality Improvement Project. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/pvamu-dissertations/2