The effects of comprehensive guidelines for the care of sickle-cell patients in crisis on the nurses' knowledge base and job satisfaction for care given.
The primary purpose of this study was to determine the effects of comprehensive nursing guidelines for sickle-cell patients in crisis on the nurses' knowledge base and job satisfaction for nursing care given. This study was carried out through the use of a single-group pretest-posttest design. A total of 18 subjects participated in the study. At the pretesting, each subject completed an Individual Information Questionnaire for the collection of background data, a Knowledge Base tool and a Job Satisfaction tool. Afterwards, all subjects attended 10.5 hours of educational programmes on sickle-cell disease, treatment, interventions and relaxation training. Following this, the comprehensive guidelines for the care of sickle-cell patients were instituted. At 3 months and 6 months after the guidelines had been in effect, subjects were again asked to complete the Knowledge Base and Job Satisfaction tools. The results of the tools were then measured comparing the three time intervals for any differences in knowledge and job satisfaction using independent measure t-tests. t-Tests were also performed for each question on the Job Satisfaction tool comparing the three time intervals. The results of the analyses demonstrated that there was a statistically significant increase in knowledge between the pretest and 6 month time interval. The findings also showed that there was no statistically significant increase in overall job satisfaction. However, the t-test results from the individual questions demonstrated a statistically significant increase in job satisfaction in the areas of nurse/physician collaboration and having a broad knowledge base of sickle-cell disease.