Paediatric Chronic Tracheostomy Care: An Evaluation of an Innovative Competency-based Education Program for Community Health Care Providers

The Hospital for Sick Children

Status: Completed

Conditions: Evaluation of HomeCare RN Respiratory Education

Treatments: Other: Tracheostomy Training Course

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04559932

1000057879

Details and patient eligibility

About

This project will evaluate a new course developed for nurses that provide care to children with breathing technology including breathing tubes and home breathing machines. The investigators plan to assess the nurses' knowledge and comfort of their ability to care for these medical technologies prior to the course as well as their ability to retain their knowledge 6 weeks and 6 months after course completion.

Full description

A structured program evaluation considering a hierarchy of outcomes is essential to determine whether the tracheostomy module is associated with improved knowledge and skills for CHPs (community health providers). This investigators proposed study is guided by the evaluation of knowledge acquisition and self-efficacy as a theoretical framework 24. CHPs' sense of self-efficacy or perceived capability in caring for this population is important to foster to potentially mitigate significant morbidity and mortality, while ultimately striving for safe, high-quality clinical care for these medically complex children.

Enrollment: 44 patients

Sex: All

Ages: Under 99 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Course registrants for the competency-based tracheostomy education course from VHA Home Healthcare agency
• Consent to study participation
• English speaking

Exclusion criteria

• Previously attended the competency-based tracheostomy course at SickKids

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

44 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

The knowledge and self-efficacy pre-tests will be completed at the start of the course and the post-test will be completed after the course at the end of the day. Study participants will complete tests independently using paper and pencil. Six weeks and six months post course completion, the knowledge and self-efficacy tests will be completed using REDcap (Research Electronic Data Capture), a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases or via telephone as per participant preference. Study participants will be sent a link to complete the tests online for the subsequent study visits. Study participants will receive 2 reminder emails (1 week apart) and 1 reminder phone call after the email reminders (if applicable) to complete the tests. Monthly telephone calls by the RA will be made to review the HCP experience logs.

Treatment:

Other: Tracheostomy Training Course

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Study participants in the control arm will be offered complementary attendance in the Health Tech Junior enterostomy and vascular access competency based training course while awaiting their session. This is being done to minimize the potential confound of generalized improvements in self-efficacy that may occur as a result of participating in an 8 hour learning opportunity at SickKids. The control group will also complete the tracheostomy course during session 3 and 4 but this will occur outside the window of data collection for the study procedures. Data collection intervals as described above for the intervention group will be followed for the control group.