Online course will educate nurses on hydration

Nurses can improve their understanding of hydration by taking a new online course by the European Hydration Institute (EHI). 

The resource for healthcare professionals, developed with academics and nutritionists, features interactive modules on water and hydration, care homes, perioperative care and physical activity. 

It will be officially launched during Nutrition and Hydration Week, which runs from March 14 to 20.

The water and hydration module is aimed at nurses and junior doctors, and explains how water affects human physiology. 

The care homes module covers the causes and consequences of dehydration in older people, while the perioperative care module explores best practice in the management of preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative hydration. 

The physical activity module describes the factors that influence water balance and hydration status at rest and during exercise, and the impact of hydration on physical health and performance.

EHI director Jane Holdsworth said that although the importance of oral hydration has been highlighted in documents such as the Francis report into failures at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, it is still an issue that is often overlooked.

‘Hydration is an important topic for nurses because it can often be difficult to diagnose whether symptoms in a patient are due to dehydration or not,’ she said. 

Each module takes between one and two hours.

More information on the course can be found here.