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Learning Objective 1: Identify delirium in older persons admitted to an acute care facility.
Learning Objective 2: understand the profound consequences associated with failure to identify and manage a person with delirium
Methods: An RCT design study recruited 175 Registered Nurses from 3 acute healthcare facilities in Brisbane, Australia. At baseline (T1) participants completed a battery of questionnaires including delirium recognition (DR) and knowledge (DK) tests. Next participants were randomised to a control and intervention group. Intervention participants were provided with website access for a five-week period. Following this period DR and DK were assessed together with evaluation of the website (T2). Further assessments of DR and DK were assessed two months later (T3). An intention-to-treat analysis of participants who completed baseline assessments was undertaken using linear mixed-modeling (LMM) to determine differences in DR and DK between both groups at three different time-points.
Results: Final sample (n=147) analysis showed participants reported high levels of satisfaction and site usability. There were no statistically significant effects of any baseline characteristics on final outcome scores. When compared with the control groups’ mean DK results the intervention groups’ change score results were higher over time [T3-T1 (t=3.390 p=<0.001) and T2-T1 baseline (t=5.04 p=<0.001)]. Statistically significant differences were also seen for DR when comparing T2-T1 results (t=2.55 p=0.012) but not for T3-T1 (t=1.84 p=0.068) comparisons.
Conclusion: Findings support the concept that online learning is an effective and satisfying method of information delivery. Results showed that the website improved DK and DR scores and this website should be utilised to provide information to nurses about delirium. A critical next step is demonstrating the effect of the intervention in improving health outcomes for people with delirium.