Agreements on perceived use of principles for Enhanced Recovery After Surgery between patients and nursing staff in a gynecological ward

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate the agreements between patients and nursing staff in perceived use of the principles of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) in a gynecological ward, both prior to and following an educational session on ERAS guidelines for the nursing staff.

Study design: This was a prospective observational study conducted in the in-patient gynecological section of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University hospital of Linköping during spring 2017. The study groups comprised women scheduled for elective in-patient gynecological surgery due to benign or malignant diseases and the nursing staff at the gynecological ward. The study was performed in three parts with two structured questionnaire interviews of patients and nursing staff, and an intermediate educational session for the nursing staff regarding ERAS principles, conducted between the parts of the interview. Seventy-two patients were included in Interview part 1 and 68 patients in Interview part 2. The results are shown as the degree of inter-rater agreement and reliability of the responses between patients and nursing staff in numbers and percentages, along with the difference (Δ) in agreement between the interview parts, and its corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI). In addition, Cohen's kappa was used to validate the findings.

Results: Inter-rater agreement in answers to the interview questions was high even before the educational session. The observed agreement was ≥ 70% in 34 out of 42 questions in Interview part 1, and in 38 out of 42 questions in Interview part 2. Thirty of the 42 items (71%) had positive Δ agreement (%) whereas 12 of the 42 (29%) had negative Δ agreement (%).

Conclusions: This study showed high inter-rater agreement in perceived adherence to ERAS principles between patients and nursing staff in a gynecological ward. This was further improved by an educational session for the staff concerning ERAS guidelines. This might indicate the importance of repeated educational sessions to maintain high compliance with ERAS principles.

Keywords: Educational session; Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS); Gynecological surgery; Inter-Rater agreements.