Central venous catheters (CVCs) are commonly used as vascular access for patients who require hemodialysis. Infectious complications are a serious clinical problem, and they are associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality, prolonged hospital stay, and increased medical treatment costs. The purpose of theproject was to evaluate the effectiveness of educating registered dialysis nurses regarding CVC maintenance care to reduce catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) in a hemodialysis unit. The project question focused on the educational program derived from the evidence-based guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve registered dialysis nurses' knowledge regarding CVC maintenance care. The theoretical foundation of the study was based on Donabedian's structure-process-outcomes model. In this project, nurses considered a structural element and used a self-study module to improve the process of providing CVC maintenance care. A paired-samples ttest was conducted to compare knowledge scores of the participants in the posttest (n = 56) and knowledge scores of participants in the pretest (n = 57). The ttest was significantly higher for the posttest than scores for the pretest. The results suggested a statistically significant improvement in the registered dialysis nurses' knowledge following the educational intervention. This study contributes to social change by identifying an educational intervention that helped improving nurses' knowledge in hemodialysis unit, thus helping hemodialysis patients stay safer and possibly reducing infectious complications.

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