Malawian critical care nurses’ views on the implementation of an educational intervention to enhance sustained use of an evidence-based endotracheal tube cuff pressure management guideline: A survey study

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based guidelines can assist critical care nurses in promoting best practices, including those related to endotracheal tube cuff pressure management. However, these guidelines require tailored strategies to enhance their implementation, uptake, and sustained use in practice. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate Malawian critical care nurses’ views on the implementation of an endotracheal tube cuff pressure management guideline to enhance sustained guideline use. METHODS: An explorative-descriptive survey design was employed, using a questionnaire with closed- and open-ended questions that was distributed after implementation of an educational intervention based on an endotracheal tube cuff pressure management guideline. The questionnaire had a Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.85. RESULTS: A total of 47 nurses working in four public and two private hospital intensive care units in Malawi participated. Quantitative findings showed that the majority of the participants (92%) indicated that the strategies used for the group that received the full intervention including both active (monitoring visits) and passive (a half-day educational session using a PowerPoint presentation, and a printed guideline and algorithm) strategies (intervention 1 group) were useful, clear and applicable and enhanced implementation of the guideline. These results were statistically significant (mean (standard deviation) 1.86 (0.84); t=6.07; p<0.0005). Qualitative data revealed three major themes related to recommendations for uptake and sustained use of the guideline in nursing practice: the guideline needs to be translated, updated, and made available to ICU staff; implementation strategies (continuous supervision and follow-up); and facilitating factors for successful implementation (education and training on guideline content, resources, and commitment to best practices). CONCLUSION: The study highlighted that although the implementation strategies used were positively received by participants, they need to be further tailored to their context to enhance guideline uptake and sustained use in practice. Further study is required to ensure that tailored implementation strategies facilitate guideline uptake and sustained use, specifically in resource-constrained contexts. CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY: The study findings can be used by nurses and academics when developing educational interventions for critical care units to enhance implementation of guidelines in this context.