Advanced Practice Nursing (APN) has demonstrated a positive impact on improving health outcomes in various international clinical settings. In Spain, however, its integration is still limited and variable, especially in specialized fields such as neurology and surgery. Existing evidence suggests that health education led by an APN can improve key indicators such as health literacy, self-efficacy, and patient satisfaction, although further research is needed in our context.
Hypothesis: Health education provided by an APN significantly improves health literacy, self-efficacy, quality of life, and the healthcare experience of patients seen in neurology and surgery nursing clinics.
Objective: To evaluate the impact of health education provided by an APN on health literacy, self-efficacy, quality of life, and the experience of patients seen in a neurology and surgery nursing clinic.
Methods: A quasi-experimental, pre- and post-intervention, single-group study. The study will begin after approval by the relevant Ethics Committee. The intervention will consist of providing comprehensive, individualized health education that includes information on the person's health history, recommended lifestyle habits and practices, available treatment options, identification of warning signs and symptoms, how to respond appropriately to them, available care pathways, and contact information for the unit. Patients seen by a Primary Care Team (PCT) in neurology and surgery nursing consultations will be included, with data collected at three points in care: before the intervention, after the intervention, and at 6 months. The primary variable is health literacy, and secondary variables are self-efficacy, quality of life, and patient experience. A pre-post comparability analysis will be performed on the variables studied.
Relevance: The results will provide applicable evidence to promote organizational models that integrate PCTs into specialized care, improving the quality of care and the patient experience, and guiding future lines of research and implementation policies. In turn, they intend to demonstrate the value provided by the EPAs on the outcome indicators and the experience of the people attended in the neurology and surgery nursing consultations.