An educational intervention for district nurses: use of electronic records in leg ulcer management.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate district nurses' management of leg ulcer patients and the effects of an in-service education programme led by district nurses as local educators at primary health-care centres.

METHOD: Data were collected from electronic patient records (EPRs), both before and after the educational intervention. Nineteen district nurses undertook a one-day course focusing on four themes: Doppler assessment and measurement of ankle brachial pressure index; compression treatment; patient education; nursing documentation. Fourteen acted as in-service educators; 12 educators completed the intervention. The EPRs were scrutinised with an audit tool.

RESULTS: The documentation on the selected key areas for the management of patients with leg ulcers was generally sparse, although the educational intervention resulted in statistically significant effects on documentation in three areas.

CONCLUSION: Further improvements in care are necessary, as are qualitative and quantitative studies to explore the large discrepancies between guidelines and everyday clinical practice in this field.