Background: Hospitals have protocols in place to provide safe and high quality care for patients. One of these protocols involves monitoring the infection rate of indwelling catheters. A policy was recently implemented for catheter care in a large general hospital, and a nurse manager was unsure if the policy was being followed by Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) on her unit.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if CNAs on a specific hospital unit were knowledgeable about the new catheter care policy.
Method(s): The literature was reviewed for best practice on catheter care. Ten CNAs were trained about the policy using poster board and pelvic model demonstrations. A pre- and post-test was administered to evaluate for changes in knowledge before and after training.
Results: Pre-test results revealed low scores (10% passing) on knowledge about catheter policy care; following training, post-test scores were significantly higher (90% passing).
Conclusions: Action needs to be taken to ensure that catheter care policy is being followed. Possible actions might include training of all new CNAs, monitoring policy adherence annually, and using simpler terminology to explain policies
