"Nurses´ knowledge, practice and sources of information related to pressure ulcer prevention and management" / "Conhecimento, práticas e fontes de informação de enfermeiros de um hospital sobre a prevenção e tratamento da úlcera de pressão"

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2004

RESUMO

The purpose of this descriptive research was to examine a group of nurses’ knowledge concerning pressure ulcers’ prevention and management, and the sources used to get information for nursing care. Twenty-five nurses, working in a middle size general hospital in an inner city of Sao Paulo state, were asked to provide demographic information, to complete the Pressure Ulcer Knowledge Test as well to identify the frequency of some practice at clinical setting related to pressure ulcer prevention and management, and their source of information. Most nurses were female (96%), in their 30’s (56%), and had finished their BSN in 5 years or less (48%). Only 8% had any specialty education after graduating from university. Of the 46 items, nurses correctly answered between 34,1% to 89,1% . The lowest score was 18 and the highest was 41. The average score was 32,48 (SD 4,7). Nine nurses (36%) correctly answered 51% to 69,9% of the items; and 15 (60%) answered correctly more than 70% of the items. Considering the items related to pressure ulcer evaluation, lower scores were obtained related to description of undermining and the presence of slough in wound bed. Related to ulcer staging, lower scores were obtained related to description of stage II and III. Knowledge about pressure ulcer prevention was lower related to meaning of Braden scale, positioning techniques while sitting or use of the 30 degree sidelying . Regarding ulcer management, nurses reported that they always (56%) performed patient’s risk evaluation at admission and document prevention measures on patients’ records (76%). However, 50% of nurses mentioned inadequate practices as giving massages on bone prominence; 12.5% reported always giving massages, 37.5% sometimes. In the nurses’ opinion, wound care is mostly performed by nurses’ aides (83.3%); however, the decision of treatment is always made by nurses (79.2%), and sometimes by the physician (66.7%). Wound care practices showed a great variability. Some nurses still use water filled gloves to protect patients’ heels and sometimes use ring cushions to treat stage I and stage II ulcers. Related to sources of information to keep updated knowledge, 12,24% of nurses mentioned that always participated of courses, scientific discussions or meetings and study groups and 75,5 % reported that participated sometimes. Some nurses (12 %) reported that always subscribes a scientific journal or reads scientific articles or uses the library, while 66,21% mentioned that sometimes do those activities. While 58,3% of nurses always had access to the Internet, only one (4%) mentioned a specific site about pressure ulcers. Most of nurses (68%) always seek nurses from the same institution as source of information and physicians and nurse researcher are seeing less frequently. Nurses that refered to always participating in activities of continuing education offered by the institution (73,7%), obtained better scores on the knowledge test. The research has shown that although nurses have a good level of knowledge in some areas of pressure ulcer prevention, more needs to be done to facilitate the implementation of research or evidenced based recommendations in this institution in order to enhance clinical practice.

ASSUNTO(S)

pressure ulcer practice guidelines diretrizes para a prática clínica pesquisa em enfermagem úlcera de pressão clinical nursing research

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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