# Sepsis Patient Education: Perspectives from Home Health Nurses and Knowledge among Sepsis Survivors

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2024 · $48,974

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign emphasizes the critical need to provide sepsis survivors
with patient education tailored to their self-care management after hospital discharge. This includes education
on their diagnosis, treatment, infection prevention and early recognition, timely treatment of infection, and post-
sepsis syndrome management. Many sepsis survivors are unaware of their diagnosis nor its implications for
post-discharge self-care, leading to knowledge deficits contributing to delayed follow-up care, poor health
outcomes, and frequent rehospitalizations. Sepsis survivors often experience long-term morbidity symptoms and
are twice as likely to be rehospitalized within 30 days of discharge compared to the general in-patient population.
Most of these rehospitalizations are due to new or recurring sepsis or infection and are considered preventable
with early post-discharge self-care. By providing high-quality sepsis patient education, nurses can empower
sepsis survivors to increase symptom monitoring, recognition, and early intervention to prevent poor health
outcomes. However, research on sepsis patient education interventions is limited and significant knowledge gaps
have yet to be addressed. For instance, it is necessary to understand how sepsis survivors’ perception of their
sepsis patient education quality relates to several education and health outcome indicators to inform future
individualized and high-quality interventions. Nurses are primarily responsible for delivering patient education
but often experience inadequate staffing and time constraints. This results in patient education being missed or
deprioritized. Thus, nurses may need to prioritize delivering high-quality patient education to those likely to have
poorer health outcomes, such as those with low health literacy and/or a higher comorbidity burden. Exploratory
research is needed to support this investiture. By addressing these knowledge gaps, my study will form the
foundation for future high-quality sepsis patient education interventions dedicated to improving sepsis survivor
outcomes. The specific aims are 1.) Determine the relationship between sepsis patient perception of education
quality compared to their self-care knowledge and self-care self-efficacy, 2.) Examine the relationship between
self-care knowledge (predictor), self-care self-efficacy (predictor), perception of patient education quality
(predictor), and 30-day rehospitalization (outcome), and 3.) Explore whether sepsis survivors’ perception of their
education quality on 30-day rehospitalization is contingent on health literacy and comorbidities levels. As a
training mechanism, this fellowship provides opportunities to enhance knowledge on current patient education
interventions, develop content expertise on sepsis survivor health outcomes, apply rigorous primary data
collection and statistical methodologies, and professional development towards developing my own program of
research. This...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10903136
- **Project number:** 1F31NR021242-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Elaine Sang
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $48,974
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-08-28 → 2026-07-27

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10903136

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10903136, Sepsis Patient Education: Perspectives from Home Health Nurses and Knowledge among Sepsis Survivors (1F31NR021242-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10903136. Licensed CC0.

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