Comparison of Two Methods for Teaching Ostomy Care

Comparison of Two Methods for Teaching Ostomy Care Topic:  First-time ostomy patients require extensive postoperative teaching.  Our Ostomy Team explored whether a video teaching method would be a comparable alternative to traditional 1:1 postoperative ostomy teaching.
Purpose:  The purpose of this study was to compare two methods of ostomy care teaching to determine the effects on patients’ knowledge, skills, and confidence related to ostomy care.

Methodology:

• Design:  A post-test only, experimental design was used to compare two methods of postoperative ostomy teaching (three sessions of 1:1 teaching versus two sessions of 1:1 teaching with a video recorded session in between). 
• Subjects:  Subjects were 68 adult male or female postoperative first-time ostomy (ileostomy or colostomy) patients, who were randomly assigned to one of the two teaching method groups. 
• Intervention / Procedure:  A video recording was created by the Ostomy Team to instruct patients in basic ostomy care, which is the content of the second postoperative teaching session.  Patients received either the Usual teaching (three 1:1 sessions) or the Alternate teaching (two 1:1 sessions with the video session in between) from the Ostomy Team.  Following the third teaching session, subjects demonstrated their knowledge of ostomy care (written test), their skills in ostomy care (demonstration), and their confidence in their ability to care for their ostomy (visual analog scale). 
• Analysis:  Data analysis included descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the differences between the groups based on two between-group factors of teaching method and type of ostomy.  Scheffe’s multiple comparison test was used for post hoc testing of group differences. 

Results / Conclusions:  Differences in patients’ knowledge, skills, and confidence with ostomy care between the two teaching methods will be discussed along with implications for ostomy teaching and future research.