Sample
The setting for this study was
a large tertiary teaching hospital
in Queensland, Australia. This
hospital has a 19-bed urology unit
and performs approximately 150
TURP surgeries per year. With the
help of Health Information Man -
age ment Services (HIMS), all
patients who had been clinically
coded as having had a TURP were
identified, and their medical
records were procured.
Measurement
AUR was defined as present
when patients who had undergone a post-operative TURP
failed a TOV and subsequently
required re-catheterization prior
to hospital discharge. A chart
audit tool was developed based
on current published clinical evidence. It included a) demographic information and b) 20 predictors (8 of which were related to
the patient’s history, 2 to the surgery, 5 to clinical factors, and 5 to
drugs) (see Table 1). The audit
tool used fixed response options,
with primarily yes or no options
for items such pre-operative UTI.
Numeric response options were
also used for variables such as
prostate weight.
Data Collection
Two experienced urology
nurse researchers collected data
concomitantly under the guidance of an experienced researcher
who has previously used the chart
audit methodology. Using the
chart audits, each chart was carefully reviewed, focusing on the
criterion set out in the audit tool.
Any discrepancies were discussed, and a decision was made
by consensus and later discussed
with the experienced researcher.
For consistency, one auditor took
primary responsibility for data
entry. Data were then electronically transferred to a correlation
database using a database management system that was independent of data model and
designed to efficiently handle
unplanned, ad hoc queries in an
analytical system environment.