Postpartum Education Redesigned: A Quality Improvement Project

Abstract

The United States has the highest rates of maternal morbidity and mortality among all developed nations, and the majority of these cases have been deemed preventable. Many women who have just given birth are not aware of the complications that can occur during the postpartum period, making this a critical time for these patients to receive essential education. This project served to develop an evidence-based postpartum education program with the goals of increasing patient satisfaction and knowledge surrounding possible postpartum complications. A secondary goal of this project was to improve nurse satisfaction with patient education and discharge processes. The postpartum education process was restructured and included the use of a new education checklist designed by experts in postpartum nursing. Voluntary surveys were distributed to qualifying postpartum nurses and patients pre- and post-educational modification to ascertain for any changes in knowledge and/or satisfaction among the groups. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed on all survey data. Post-implementation findings demonstrated statistically significant differences in the frequency that nurses reviewed possible complications, in patient confidence and knowledge regarding possible post-birth complications and in patient satisfaction with their current knowledge surrounding postpartum complications. The results of this pilot study justify continued use of the modified education checklist in order to increase postpartum patient knowledge of potential complications and assist in decreasing rates of preventable maternal morbidity and mortality.