Planned intervention: On Wednesday April 3rd 05:30 UTC Zenodo will be unavailable for up to 2-10 minutes to perform a storage cluster upgrade.
Published September 1, 2021 | Version v1
Journal article Open

KNOWLEDGE ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES AMONG NURSES REGARDING DIABETIC FOOT CARE AT LAHORE GENERAL HOSPITAL, PAKISTAN

Description

Introduction: Diabetic foot ulcers is one of the most crippling complications of diabetes. Wound care requires prompt vigilance and significant utilization of healthcare resources. It is highly suggestive that healthcare workers must possess comprehensive command on their updated knowledge regarding pathophysiology along with a positive attitude to ensure better healthcare goals. Our literature search revealed a paucity of evidence pertaining to diabetic foot ulcers. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of nurses rendering diabetic foot care. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was developed, a validated and tested questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample size of 300 nurses working at Lahore General Hospital, Pakistan. The study was conducted over a period of three months (June 2018 to January 2019) and included all nurses who possessed at least one year of clinical experience in surgery department. The statistical software employed was SPSS version 19 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, US). Statistical significance was assumed at a p-value of less than 0.5.

Results: Only 58% of the nurses in our study possessed adequate knowledge of diabetic foot ulcers. The mean score of knowledge was 74.9 (±9.5). Macdonald’s standard criteria for learning outcomes was used to score the knowledge levels of study sample. Nurses performed best in the domain of ulcer care with 68.1% of the participants possessing good knowledge of the topic. The overall attitude of nurses towards patients with diabetic ulcers was positive.

Conclusion: This study identified practical yet reversible deficiencies in nurses knowledge and highlights the significance of evidence-based practice. Poor knowledge can mask quality of healthcare status despite owning positive attitudes. Hence, a dynamic and pragmatic approach for the nursing curricula revision across the country should be run to support tertiary care hospitals framework for rendering multi-disciplinary plan of action and allowing the nurses to update their knowledge.

Keywords: diabetic foot ulcers, nursing care, wound management, evidence based practice.

Files

52.Knowledge attitude and practices among nurses regarding diabetic foot care at Lahore General Hospital.pdf