Patient Population Education Material Proposal

Sample Answer

The selected issue of interest is sleep apnea in patients in VA Medical Center. Sleep apnea is one of the complications that affect up to 10-20% of adult surgical patients. The risk for sleep apnea increases with factors such as the health problem and body mass index. Generally, post-surgical patients develop sleep apnea due to physiological changes in sleep architecture, sleep-disordered breathing, and injury to the upper airway during intubation.

The diagnostic sensitivity of clinical examination of patients at risk of sleep apnea is about 50-60%. This rate implies that most patients are at risk of developing sleep apnea post-operatively (Ayas et al., 2017). Therefore, healthcare providers should be sensitized on the clinical examination of patients at risk of sleep apnea to minimize its associated complications.

The target population of focus in this proposal is post-operative patients who are at a risk of or those who have developed sleep apnea. This group of patients was selected because sleep apnea is a serious health problem post-operatively that can worsen the health outcomes of the patients. Patients who develop sleep apnea require close monitoring from the nurses and healthcare providers. Nurses must therefore have the essential knowledge and skills in the management of post-operative patients with sleep apnea.

As identified earlier, the sensitivity of the clinical examination in identifying perioperative patients at risk of developing sleep apnea post-operatively is low. This implies that most patients develop undetected sleep apnea post-operatively, which increases the care they need. As a result, it increases the need for the adoption of interventions that aim at increasing the level of awareness of the staffs on the identification of patients at risk of sleep apnea and the anticipatory optimum care that should be given to address their health needs (de Raaff et al., 2017).

Based on this evidences, the proposal seeks to identify strategies that can be used to increase the level of awareness among nurses on the accurate identification of patients at risk of post-operative sleep apnea for the optimization of their health outcomes post-operatively.

References

• Ayas, N. T., Laratta, C. R., Coleman, J. M., Doufas, A. G., Eikermann, M., Gay, P. C., … & Malhotra, A. (2018). Knowledge gaps in the perioperative management of adults with obstructive sleep apnea and obesity hypoventilation syndrome. An official American Thoracic Society workshop report. Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 15(2), 117-126.
• de Raaff, C. A., Gorter-Stam, M. A., de Vries, N., Sinha, A. C., Bonjer, H. J., Chung, F., … & Hillman, D. R. (2017). Perioperative management of obstructive sleep apnea in bariatric surgery a consensus guideline. Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases, 13(7), 1095-1109.