The Impact of an Educational Intervention on Inflammatory Bowel Disease for Nurses in Brazil

Background: The inflammatory bowel disease nurse plays a key role in the multidisciplinary team. The aim of the study was to evaluate the inflammatory bowel disease knowledge before and after the educational intervention with nurses. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive and comparative study was performed from June to August 2016. The sample consisted of 26 nurses from the nursing staff of a public university hospital in São Paulo State, Brazil. The study was divided into three phases: pre-educational intervention, educational intervention and post-educational intervention (test application). A p-value < 0.05 was considered to indicate statistically significance. Results: The study included 26 general nurses with an average of 9.20 ± 5.78 years of experience. There was an increase in safety in administering biological therapy after the course (from 33.34% to 78.26%), and an increase in knowledge about the main inflammatory bowel disease symptoms (64.29% vs 96.30%, p = 0.0224), and about infliximab infusion (35.71% vs 74.07%, p = 0.0404). Conclusion: The educational intervention effectively contributed to the increase of knowledge of the nursing staff.

The Impact of a Real-Life Inflammatory Bowel Disease Education Course for Brazilian Physicians from the Perspective of Its Participants

Background: Physicians must acquire the necessary skills to provide Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) patients with state-of-the-art clinical care, aiming to improve patient’s quality of life and disease outcomes. Purpose: To describe the queries and experiences of doctors enrolled in an IBD education course and to evaluate the impact of the course. Methods: A retrospective study included 100 physicians, of which 78 attended the course. A questionnaire was applied evaluating how the course had an impact on their IBD-knowledge. The 20-hour-course consisted of practical “real-life” activities and theoretical discussions. Results: The majority of doctors’ expertise was in gastroenterology (53%) and coloproctology (44%). A significant portion had no experience with biological therapy for ulcerative colitis (19.4%) or Crohn’s disease (5.05%). The main topics doctors wanted to discuss were biological therapy (93%), new drugs (74%) and differential diagnosis (64%). A considerable number of physicians did not feel confident at prescribing biological therapy before the course (44.4%), a percentage that decreased to 8.5% after the course (p < 0.0001). The impact of the course was considered high (grades 9 and 10) by most of the participants (78.2%). Discussion: The ideal course should have a practical and theoretical component, as well as the support of an experienced multidisciplinary team. A real-life practical-theoretical IBD course proved a success at increasing IBD knowledge.