Document Type
Poster
Publication Date
2021
Abstract
Pediatric sexual assault is a widespread problem. The exact prevalence is unknown since pediatric sexual assault is often unreported. Pediatric sexual assault occurs at every ethnic, social, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic level. This population often presents to the emergency department where a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) may not be readily available. It is crucial to have effective communication skills for the trauma-informed care these patients should receive. The patient, intervention, comparison, outcome, and time (PICOT) question for this scholarly project proposal is: For the pediatric emergency department nurses at an urban university pediatric emergency department, who often care for pediatric sexual assault patients, does the implementation of an educational tool lead to improved communication skills, improving the care these patients receive? The author created the proposal to train pediatric emergency department nursing staff using an educational tool on effective communication skills when providing care to pediatric sexual assault victims. The results of the proposed project, evaluated by the use of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles, aim to increase nurses' knowledge and confidence in communication with this patient population by increasing the statistical significance of a post-survey compared to a pre-survey. The findings could suggest that the tool could be used on a larger scale and transferred to other providers' use.
