Date

5-2019

Department

School of Nursing

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Chair

Vickie B Moore

Keywords

Baby Boomer, Birth Cohort 1945–1965, Screening, Hepatitis C, IV Drug Abuse, Medically Uninsured

Disciplines

Leadership Studies | Nursing | Public Health and Community Nursing

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a public health epidemic effecting 3.5 million people in the United States alone. The uninsured, underserved residents of a rural county in North Carolina have limited access to screening and early detection for HCV. Through collective efforts, a free medical clinic partnered with a grant funded, nonprofit organization to provide free hepatitis C testing by use of a mobile medical unit. The aim of this study was to determine if use of an HCV screening tool would increase the number of patients screened for testing as compared retrospectively to the number of patients screened without use of the HCV screening tool. Methods included retrospective data from chart audit, patient survey of at-risk HCV behaviors including the birth cohort 1945-1965, and a pretest/ posttest measure of provider knowledge on HCV before and after an educational intervention. The sample population consisted of a retrospective group R(n=52) and a prospective group P(n=49). The screening outcome of each group resulted the following: R(n=52) confirmed screening 13 out of the 52 (25%) participants without use of a screening tool while the P(n=49) group captured 43 out of 49 (82.7%) participants with the implementation of a screening tool. Participant gender for the study included males 44.6% and females 55.4 %. The most common risk factor for HCV was birth cohort (1945-1965) 30.2% followed by Intravenous drug use 11.6%. Lastly, results of the pretest / posttest exhibited a 20.8% increase in HCV provider knowledge.

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