Sepsis Patient Education: Perspectives from Home Health Nurses and Knowledge among Sepsis Survivors

PROJECT SUMMARY. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign emphasizes the critical need to provide sepsis survivors with patient education tailored to their self-care management after hospital discharge. This includes education on their diagnosis, treatment, infection prevention and early recognition, timely treatment of infection, and post-

sepsis syndrome management. Many sepsis survivors are unaware of their diagnosis nor its implications for post-discharge self-care, leading to knowledge deficits contributing to delayed follow-up care, poor health outcomes, and frequent rehospitalizations. Sepsis survivors often experience long-term morbidity symptoms and

are twice as likely to be rehospitalized within 30 days of discharge compared to the general in-patient population. Most of these rehospitalizations are due to new or recurring sepsis or infection and are considered preventable with early post-discharge self-care. By providing high-quality sepsis patient education, nurses can empower

sepsis survivors to increase symptom monitoring, recognition, and early intervention to prevent poor health outcomes. However, research on sepsis patient education interventions is limited and significant knowledge gaps have yet to be addressed. For instance, it is necessary to understand how sepsis survivors’ perception of their

sepsis patient education quality relates to several education and health outcome indicators to inform future individualized and high-quality interventions. Nurses are primarily responsible for delivering patient education but often experience inadequate staffing and time constraints. This results in patient education being missed or

deprioritized. Thus, nurses may need to prioritize delivering high-quality patient education to those likely to have poorer health outcomes, such as those with low health literacy and/or a higher comorbidity burden. Exploratory research is needed to support this investiture. By addressing these knowledge gaps, my study will form the

foundation for future high-quality sepsis patient education interventions dedicated to improving sepsis survivor outcomes. The specific aims are 1.) Determine the relationship between sepsis patient perception of education quality compared to their self-care knowledge and self-care self-efficacy, 2.) Examine the relationship between

self-care knowledge (predictor), self-care self-efficacy (predictor), perception of patient education quality (predictor), and 30-day rehospitalization (outcome), and 3.) Explore whether sepsis survivors’ perception of their education quality on 30-day rehospitalization is contingent on health literacy and comorbidities levels. As a

training mechanism, this fellowship provides opportunities to enhance knowledge on current patient education interventions, develop content expertise on sepsis survivor health outcomes, apply rigorous primary data collection and statistical methodologies, and professional development towards developing my own program of

research. This study addresses the NINR mission “to lead nursing research to solve pressing health challenges and inform practice and policy-optimizing health and advancing health equity into the future” through addressing 1.) Prevention and Health Promotion, 2.) Systems and Models of Care, and 3.) Health Equity.