Journal of Advanced Practices in Nursing

Knowledge of nurses in Recognition and Management of Deteriorating Patients in BPKIHS, Nepal

Abstract

Gayanand Mandal

Recognition and management of deteriorating patients is a matter of serious concern. Deteriorating patients often show signs of physiological deterioration, therefore nurses being in close contact with patients play the frontline caretaker and have greater role in early recognition of ominous events. The objective of the study is to assess the level of Knowledge of nurses in recognizing and managing deteriorating patients in BPKIHS. A descriptive, cross-sectional research design was adopted for this study. Total 70 staff nurses working in Medical, Surgical, Orthopedics, ICU, CCU and Surgical ICU of BPKIHS were selected using population proportionate stratified simple random sampling technique. Self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection and the collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Among 70 respondents 38.6% of them were from critical care unit and 61.4% from general unit. The mean age of the respondents was 25.86±3.24 SD ranging from 19-34 years old. The overall knowledge level in recognition and management of deteriorating patient was found to be good among 48.6% and poor among 51.4%. Findings revealed that critical care nurses had more knowledge than general unit nurses and was statistically significant (p<0.001). Nurses in overall demonstrated poor knowledge in recognition and management of deteriorating patient. Statistically significant association was found between overall level of knowledge and working area of nurses. Hence there’s need for educational efforts to improve nurses’ knowledge in recognition and management of deteriorating patient.