To assess whether an educational event works, assessors should gauge healthcare professionals handling pressure ulcers both before and after the training takes place, a new study finds.

Experimenters designed a two-day wound care course around the Pieper-Zulkowski Pressure Ulcer Knowledge Test (PZ-PUKT, version 2). The test is standardized, with 72 items measuring three domains: prevention (28 items), staging (20 items) and wounds (24 items). In a 2014 analysis, researchers found that PZ-PUKT “has updated content about pressure ulcer prevention/risk, staging, and wound description. Reliability values are highest for the total test.”

In the recent course, healthcare professionals in the Philippines took the test before and after the course was completed. Researchers found there was a statistically significant increase in pressure injury knowledge scores after the course.

The authors recommend that providers measure knowledge before and after training to address whether “knowledge deficits” are corrected. PZ-PUKT can allow learners to “self-identify, self-learn, and self-correct knowledge according to the best new evidence as it becomes available.”