Impact of a Nurse-Driven Breastfeeding Educational Intervention on Maternal-Child Nurse Knowledge Gain and Patient Satisfaction in a Community Hospital

Purpose:

The purpose of this project is to describe the implementation and evaluation of a maternal-child nurse breastfeeding educational training at South Miami Hospital.

Methods:

A hospital-based inter-professional team was developed to conduct an educational needs assessment, identify a breastfeeding curriculum, execute the mandatory breastfeeding training, and track nurse and patient outcomes pre- and post- the educational intervention. From that team, 10 lactation specialists were trained to be breastfeeding instructors and taught twenty 4-hour sessions between January 2013 and August 2013.

Nurse Knowledge gain was evaluated by conducting a paired t-test of a random sample of pre- and post- test scores. Patient Satisfaction with nurse support of breastfeeding was tracked for the first quarter of the year in 2013 and compared to five years prior.

Results:

Approximately 287 maternal-child nurses attended the training.  There was a statistically significant increase in knowledge scores from pre to post testing (t (20) = 8.04, p < 0.0001). Patient satisfaction for the first quarter of 2013 was the highest (92%) that it had been in the previous five years.

Conclusion:

A nurse-driven breastfeeding educational intervention has the potential to impact nurse knowledge gain, patient satisfaction, and the overall reputation of a hospital.