An Intervention to Debunk Facts vs. Myths in Intermittent Fasting: A Quality Improvement Project

Intermittent fasting (IF) is gaining popularity as an eating regimen to promote health and optimize wellbeing. IF is the voluntary avoidance of food over a period and is not a diet, but an eating behavior (Teong et al., 2021). Despite the increased emphasis on obesity and diet-related diseases, IF education remains lacking in formal training programs and can influence HCC’s attitudes and behaviors when engaging in IF dialogue with patients in clinical settings. Evidence suggests that IF is beneficial for weight loss and has been shown to have positive effects on the brain, heart, liver, muscles, intestines, blood, and various other systems. IF has also been shown to reduce risk factors associated with the development and progression of type II diabetes, neurological disorders, and cancers. Additionally, IF may boost the effectiveness of certain medical and cancer treatments (Armutcu, 2019; Phillips, 2019). The main objective is to determine if an evidence-based education program on intermittent fasting will change healthcare clinicians’ knowledge, attitudes, confidence level, perception of knowledge, and behavior in communicating with adult patients about IF. The presentation aims to fill the knowledge gaps with pertinent evidence-based information, debunk common IF myths, and provide effective communication strategies to help improve HCCs knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and behavior of IF in clinical practice settings. The study is a quasi-experimental, pre-test post-test quality improvement (QI) project including 20 HCCs working at the practice site. Potential participants were identified by snow-ball samplings of various units/clinics at the site. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Results from the project indicate that mean knowledge scores compared from baseline to post-education increased, 6.8 (s.d. 3.77) and 12.65 (s.d. 4.83), respectively. Based on the current evidence and the results from this quality-improvement project, HCC education helps improve knowledge, confidence, perceptions, and behaviors of IF in clinical practice settings to promote safe and effective communication with patients

An Educational Intervention for Infusion Center Nurses to Improve Their Confidence in Identification and Management of Immunotherapy Adverse Events, Based on Changes in Pre- and Post-test scores: A Quality Improvement Project

BACKGROUND: Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses the body’s immune system to fight diseases. It is used for the management of many conditions but is mainly utilized in cancer treatment. Immunotherapy has been shown to improve quality of life and increase survival rates in metastatic disease. A major limitation of immunotherapy are the adverse events (AE), or adverse effects, that may cause a delay in treatment, lead to hospitalization, or in extreme cases, mortality. In this study the terms adverse events and adverse effects will be used interchangeably. DESIGN: Pre- and post-test survey design. METHODS: Data was collected from a sample of 23 Infusion Center nurses following an education intervention on identification and management of immunotherapy adverse events, using the Oncology Nurse Immunotherapy Confidence Survey (ONICS) instrument modified for this QI project. RESULTS: The pre- and post-test scores revealed a 39% increase in Infusion Centers nurses’ confidence regarding identification and management of immunotherapy adverse events shown. These findings were established as statically significant (p \u3e 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Novice nurses and experienced nurses new to the Oncology specialty would most benefit from this intervention. Department orientation policies can be reviewed and modified based on the data from this project to improve the quality of patient care