© 2016 Ann & Joshua Medical Publishing Co. Ltd | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow 45 Introduction of Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation into Nursing Practice: A Prospective Study Access this article online Quick Response Code: Website: www.apjon.org DOI: 10.4103/2347-5625.178171 Meera S. Achrekar 1 , Vedang Murthy 2 , Sadhana Kanan 3 , Rani Shetty 4 , Mini Nair 1 , Navin Khattry 5 Departments of 1 Nursing, 2 Radiation Oncology, 3 Biostatistics, 5 Medical Oncology, Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer, Tata Memorial Centre, Navi Mumbai, 4 Leelabai Thackersey College of Nursing, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Corresponding author: Meera S. Achrekar Professor, Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) Tata Memorial Centre Address: Sector 22, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, 410210, Maharashtra, India Tel: +919769993848 E-mail: machrekar@actrec.gov.in Received: January 11, 2016, Accepted: January 24, 2016 Original Article Objective: The aim of the study was to introduce and evaluate the compliance to documentation of situation, background, assessment, recommendation (SBAR) form. Methods: Twenty nurses involved in active bedside care were selected by simple random sampling. Use of SBAR was illustrated thru self-instructional module (SIM). Content validity and reliability were established. The situation, background, assessment, recommendation (SBAR) form was disseminated for use in a clinical setting during shift handover. A retrospective audit was undertaken at 1 st week (A1) and 16 th week (A2), post introduction of SIM. Nurse’s opinion about the SBAR form was also captured. Results: Majority of nurses were females (65%) in the age group 21-30 years (80%). There was a significant association (P = 0.019) between overall audit scores and graduate nurses. Significant improvement (P = 0.043) seen in overall scores between A1 (mean: 23.20) and A2 (mean: 24.26) and also in “Situation” domain (P = 0.045) as compared to other domains. There was only a marginal improvement in documentation related to patient’s allergies and relevant past history (7%) while identifying comorbidities decreased by 40%. Only 70% of nurses had documented plan of care. Most (76%) of nurses expressed that SBAR form was useful, but 24% nurses felt SBAR documentation was time-consuming. The assessment was easy (53%) to document while recommendation was the difficult (53%) part. Conclusions: SBAR technique has helped nurses to have a focused and easy communication during transition of care during handover. Importance and relevance of capturing information need to be reinforced. An audit to look for reduced number of incidents related to communication failures is essential for long-term evaluation of patient outcomes. Use of standardized SBAR in nursing practice for bedside shift handover will improve communication between nurses and thus ensure patient safety. Key words: Nurses, situation, background, assessment, recommendation, shift handover ABSTRACT This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. For reprints contact: reprints@medknow.com Cite this article as: Achrekar MS, Murthy V, Kanan S, Shetty R, Nair M, Khattry N. Introduction of Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation into Nursing Practice: A Prospective Study. Asia Pac J Oncol Nurs 2016;3:45-50.