Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Senior Thesis
Degree
Bachelor of Science in Nursing
Primary Major
Nursing
Thesis Advisor
Andrea Boyle, PhD, FNAP, ANP
Abstract
Even though rare in occurrence, sepsis in pregnancy causes high morbidity and mortality rates, most deaths preventable with timely recognition and intervention. With symptoms difficult to identify, adjusted screening tools were created. The literature review highlighted the importance of using approaches such as these tools to improve on maternal outcomes and treatment. The review displayed how nurses in other departments find difficulty defining and identifying sepsis in adults as well as education surrounding interventions in maternal sepsis and obstetrical emergencies improve knowledge deficits. In response, questions emerge about what labor and delivery nurses know about recognizing sepsis in the pregnant population. Even further, there is a lack of research of how education on approaches to antepartum sepsis identification impacts nurses’ knowledge. This proposed one group pretest posttest research study will gather 50 labor and delivery nurses across multiple hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area to collect data on their demographics such as experience, education, and last sepsis training, knowledge before an educational intervention on screening for antepartum sepsis with a 20 multiple choice test, and knowledge after an educational intervention with the same test. The results of the pretest Statistical analysis will be used to analyze the data, using a paired t-test and p value to prove any statistically significant information. Descriptive statistics will also be used to describe the results of the knowledge tests. Further research may include studying the retention of education on the recognition of antepartum sepsis or assessing how education impacts mortality rates.