Addressing Lyme Disease: An Educational Module for Healthcare Providers

Abstract

Since its identification over 40 years ago, Lyme disease has continually spread, and the number of cases have significantly increased in the northeastern and northcentral United States. The Center for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) estimates that approximately 30,000 individuals in the United States per year are diagnosed with Lyme disease (2016). Lyme disease is a vector-borne disease that is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacteria transmitted by the Ixodes scapularis tick. The disease presents in numerous ways, often making the diagnosis difficult. Healthcare providers have the opportunity to reduce and prevent health complications associated with Lyme disease, but substantial knowledge gaps are present in relation to the overall care of patients with the disease (Hill, 2013). In addition, numerous healthcare providers within the United States have reported not feeling confident in their knowledge level of tick-borne disease (Brett et al., 2014). By facilitating healthcare providers learning through a continuing education module, they may improve their practices and provide more competent, safe, and high quality care for patients with Lyme disease. With the apparent need for increased knowledge and awareness of Lyme disease among healthcare providers, a continuing education module was constructed for distribution with the American Association of Nurse Practitioners Continuing Education Center. Information on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Lyme disease was incorporated into the module to educate healthcare providers. The online module evaluated Lyme disease knowledge through a pretest, posttest, and evaluation survey. Approximately 10 weeks of data were collected with a total of 305 healthcare provider participants. As a result of the continuing education module, learning was demonstrated by improvement on 17 of 18 pretest and posttest content-related questions. Additionally, approximately 93% (n = 283) of participants felt the continuing education module enhanced their current knowledge base. In summary, results demonstrated that the continuing education module impacted the participants positively by advancing their knowledge of Lyme disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.