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Translating evidence‐based nursing clinical handover practice in an acute care setting: A quasi‐experimental study
Author(s) -
Hada Adriana,
Jones Lee V.,
Jack Leanne C.,
Coyer Fiona
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
nursing and health sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.563
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1442-2018
pISSN - 1441-0745
DOI - 10.1111/nhs.12836
Subject(s) - generalizability theory , medicine , acute care , adverse effect , handover , patient safety , intervention (counseling) , nursing , odds , emergency medicine , odds ratio , clinical practice , evidence based nursing , family medicine , health care , alternative medicine , psychology , logistic regression , computer network , developmental psychology , pathology , computer science , economics , economic growth
Abstract Effective transfer of information during the nursing handover contributes to patient safety. This study aimed to translate the best practice nursing shift handover recommendations in an acute care setting using the Ottawa Model for Research Use and to explore its effect on patient adverse outcomes (falls, pressure injuries, and medication errors). Using a quasi‐experimental design, the study was conducted in four internal medicine wards in a major tertiary hospital. A total of 88 nurses and 110 patients participated in 152 handover observations. The findings showed clinically important increases in percentages and odds of nurses' compliance with shift handover recommendations after the intervention. The patient adverse outcomes after the intervention were compared to the corresponding period of previous year. A reduction was observed for all adverse patient outcomes with incident rate ratios of 0.762 ( p = 0.027) for falls, 0.624 for pressure injuries ( p = 0.010), and 0.782 for medication errors ( p = 0.023). Replicating this study's methodology across multiple clinical settings will increase the generalizability of findings and provide further evidence to inform nursing practice and policy.