Award Date

5-1-2013

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing (ND)

Department

Nursing

First Committee Member

Nancy Menzel

Second Committee Member

Alona Dalusung-Angosta

Third Committee Member

Pramen Shrestha

Number of Pages

59

Abstract

Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is an incurable, chronic condition that results in a constellation of disorders, frequent emergency department (ED) visits, and repeated hospital admissions. Those affected often suffer from pain crisis, infection, acute chest syndrome, stroke, and multi-organ impairment and frequently do not receive adequate pain management during acute pain episodes because ED providers view them as drug seeking. The majority of patients with SCD are African-American and may be low income, uninsured, or on Medicaid. As a result, these demographics make ED under-treatment of pain in patients with SCD a health equity issue. This was a pre-experimental one group pre-test/post-test quality improvement project to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation of an evidence-based analgesic algorithm coupled with an intervention on practice change behavior towards patients with SCD. The intervention was an educational video and introduction of an evidence-based analgesic prescribing algorithm (ED-SCANS Decision 2). The outcome variables were provider perceptions (assessed by the Positive Provider Attitudes towards Sickle Cell Patients questionnaire) and levels of pain in SCD patients before and after the intervention. The results of this project indicated that there was a significant improvement in provider attitudes between the pre-test and post-test scores (p

Keywords

Cell; Emergency; Hospitals – Emergency services; Pain – Treatment; Sickle; Sickle cell anemia – Treatment

Disciplines

Emergency Medicine | Nursing

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/


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