Outcome Evaluation

Outcome Evaluation

We have been talking about health education and health promotion, the principal strategies used by nurses in the community. Today’s topic focuses on how to decide whether those strategies, or any nursing interventions have been effective. Although we, as nurses, have always evaluated the effect of interventions, never have nurses been so accountable as they are today. Managed care has focused attention on whether or not the time, money, and other costs for a particular nursing intervention were worthwhile. In earlier times, nurses did the teaching, documented that relevant, appropriate teaching had been accomplished, and considered the job finished. Today, that is not good enough!

The word today is outcomes—it means the same thing as evaluation. Outcomes are an extremely important concept in health care now. We evaluate how well the intervention worked by collecting data. We know what kind of data to collect by the behavioral objectives developed earlier to guide the intervention in the first place.

For an example, let’s think about a client who has hypertension, is overweight, and does not take blood pressure medicine as ordered. Relevant measurable objectives might well be:

1. The client will maintain a blood pressure of < 140/90.

2. The client will participate in brisk walking for 30 minutes 3X weekly.

3. The client will take medications as ordered 90% of the time.

You already know how to develop these objectives, but if you need some reminders, read Mager’s book on instructional objectives. Well developed objectives not only guide interventions, they also determine decisions about effectiveness of the teaching. The objectives specify the evaluation criteria or what data are collected to evaluate. In today’s terminology, these evaluation criteria are called outcomes. In this case, the outcomes are:

1. Blood pressure levels at or below 140/90.

2. Participation in...