Quality Improvement Project: Educational Podcast on Drug Diversion in Anesthesia

Purpose Statement. The purpose of this DNP Project is to provide education to the perioperative staff about drug diversion to increase and sustain knowledge of the incidence, recognition, consequences, reporting, and resources for drug diversion and Substance Use Disorders (SUD).Background. Drug diversion is a significant problem among anesthesia providers and occurs when drugs intended for patient use are illegally redirected by the provider for personal substance use or out-of-hospital distribution (Ades et al., 2023). Substance Use Disorders (SUD) often precedes drug diversion and is defined as a psychological disorder where a person compulsively abuses substances like alcohol and drugs (Rupprecht et al., 2022). Anesthesia providers have a SUD incidence between 10-15% and a drug diversion incidence of 10% (AANA, 2021; Fitzsimons et al., 2023; Deford et al., 2019; Clark et al., 2022). Methods. An educational podcast with a technical expert in drug diversion was delivered to 19 Nurse Anesthesiologists at Oroville Hospital in Oroville, California. The technical expert for the podcast was Bridget Petrillo, CRNA. The content of the podcast included incidence, recognition, consequences, reporting, and resources for drug diversion and SUD. The evaluation measures included a pre-test prior to the podcast, a post-test immediately after the podcast, and a post-post-test scheduled a month later to assess recall. Results. The project recruited nine Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs), with five participants (n=5) completing all phases of the intervention, representing 38% of the facility's CRNAs. Statistical analysis compared pre-test, post-test, and one-month post-post-test scores to evaluate knowledge acquisition and retention. There was an increase in knowledge scores from the pre-test (Median = 16) to the post-test (Median = 17). Although the p-value (p=0.059) did not reach the traditional threshold for statistical significance due to the small sample size, the rank-biserial correlation (r=0.80) indicated a large effect size, suggesting a potentially meaningful educational impact. Knowledge retention was sustained at the one-month follow-up with a median score of 17. Conclusions. This quality improvement project suggests that podcasts could potentially be a viable and effective educational modality for busy anesthesia providers regarding drug diversion and Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Limitations in sample size possibly prevented this study from identifying statistical significance; however, the large effect sizes positively correlated with meaningful knowledge acquisition and retention. The findings lay meaningful groundwork toward supporting the sustainability of using recorded digital media to overcome scheduling barriers in clinical education. Future practice implications include implementing this study at a larger scale, scaling this cost-effective intervention hospital-wide, and focusing on clarifying safe reporting policies to further enhance the culture of patient and provider safety.

Name thesis:degree_name

D.N.P.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate College

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Arizona.

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Duran, Madison Elizabeth

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Herring, Christopher

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Elam, Charles
• Rain, Eric

• anesthesia
• drug diversion
• knowledge
• misuse
• substance
• SUD

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10150/680221

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/680221