Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a geriatric training program for nurses in hospitals and to evaluate the effects of the training program.
Methods: The quasi-experimental research design was adopted. Nurses who had more 3 months’ clinical experience and worked in the medical center in the southern Taiwan were included. The nurses in experimental group should receive geriatric training program; the nurses in control group were selected from the same unit by head nurse. The structured questionnaire was developed based on the literature review and validated through expert consensus, which included: demographic variables, variables related to nursing careers, geriatric educational variables, geriatric care knowledge scale, attitude toward geriatric care scale and self-reported geriatric care competency scale. The structured questionnaire was collected before training program. The self-reported geriatric care competency scale was measured after training program and six months after training program. Data were analyzed with independent-sample t test, chi-square test and repeat measure.
Results: A total of 124 nurses were included in the study (62 nurses for experimental group and 62 nurses for control group). There was no difference in baseline characteristics between experimental and control group. The geriatric care competencies in experimental group was improvement after training program (73.33±8.01 v.s. 61.37±12.77, p <.01) and six months after training program (74.29±9.72 v.s. 61.37±12.77, p<.01). However, there was not significant improvement between after training program and six months after training program (p=.27). Besides, The geriatric care competencies in control group was significant improvement between after training program and six months after training program (71.28±9.12 v.s. 64.23±11.20, p<.01). However, there was not significant improvement after training program (p=.15).
Conclusion: This study showed geriatric care training program can improve nurses' geriatric care competencies not only in experimental group but also in control group. We suggest the educator in hospital should plan and provide geriatric training program in order to improve nurses’ geriatric care competencies.