The Effect of Clinical Practice Guideline in Chest Pain Triage in Outpatients Department Koh Kha Hospital, Lampang Province

Abstract

          A quasi-experimental, two-group study was conducted to compare the accuracy of screening for chest pain syndrome patients and to investigate nurses' satisfaction with using clinical practice guidelines for screening these patients in the Outpatient Department (OPD) of Koh Ka Hospital, Lampang Province. The sample consisted of 5 professional nurses working in the OPD of Koh Ka Hospital and 40 patients presenting with chest pain syndrome at the same OPD. Research instruments were validated for content validity by 3 experts, yielding a content validity index of 0.80, and for reliability using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which was 0.90. Data were analyzed using percentages, means, standard deviations, and independent t-tests. The results revealed that after implementing the clinical practice guidelines for screening patients with chest pain syndrome, the experimental group was able to screen patients more accurately than before, and the difference compared to the control group was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the overall satisfaction of nurses with using the clinical practice guidelines for screening chest pain syndrome patients in the OPD of Koh Ka Hospital was at the highest level, with 80.00%.
        The findings suggest that clinical practice guidelines for screening chest pain syndrome can lead to accurate history-taking of risk factors and assessment of chest pain symptoms. This contributes to improving patient outcomes and service delivery in the OPD, reducing diagnostic errors, providing timely treatment for patients, preventing severe complications during medical care, and achieving high satisfaction among nurses regarding the use of these clinical practice guidelines.