Educational intervention for enhancing primary health care nurses’ knowledge about risk estimation and prevention of cardiovascular disease

Abstract

Background: Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of morbidity, disability, and premature death. Globally, risk reduction is becoming a priority and primary care nurses are in prime position to provide lifestyle modification strategies for their patients.

Aim: Evaluate the effectiveness of educational intervention on the level of primary care nurses' knowledge, concerning risk estimation and prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Design: Quasi-experimental design. The study was conducted in Directorate of Health Affairs at Shebin El-Kom on a convenience sample of 357 nurses working in primary health care settings at Menoufia governorate, Egypt. Tools: Structured self-administered questionnaire included two parts. First was about nurse’s socio-demographic data. The second was included five categories to assess nurse’s knowledge about heart and blood vessels, cardiovascular risk factors, prevention strategies of cardiovascular diseases, nurses' role in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and estimation of probable risk of developing cardiovascular diseases for 10 years based on Framingham scoring system.

Results: All of the nurses (100%) had not received training about cardiovascular disease prevention. In pre-intervention, minority of nurses had good level of knowledge concerning heart and blood vessels, cardiovascular disease risk factors, prevention strategies and estimation of probable cardiovascular disease risk for 10 years and the percentage ranged from 0.0% to25.2% across all categories; 40.3% of nurses had correctly known their role in prevention of cardiovascular disease. The level of knowledge increased with years of experience and educational qualification. In post-intervention, the majority of nurses achieved good level of knowledge and the percentage ranged from 79.3% to 87.7% across all categories. The improvement in nurses' knowledge in postintervention reflected the significant effect of the implemented intervention.

Conclusion: The implemented educational intervention has a significant effect in improving primary care nurses' level of knowledge concerning risk estimation and prevention of cardiovascular disease.