Knowledge, Altitude And Practice of Nurses towards Neonatal Sepsis in Duhok Governorate

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Neonatal sepsis is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality of hospitalized newborns and premature infants. The aim of this study was to assess nurses’ knowledge, attitude and practice towards neonatal sepsis in Duhok governorate. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 171 nurses of both genders with different educational levels and working experiences who are dealing with neonates of public hospital were conventionally included. The data required for the present study were collected through investigator-administered self-reported technique between June 2018 and November 2018. In order to determine the face validity of the questionnaire the researcher distributed copies to experts in the medical, nursing pediatric and research departments to have their opinion about the items. The questionnaire was sent to (8) who had experience of more than 5 year in their field. The reliability was tested by using Cronbach's Alpha to ascertain reliability and consistency of the survey. Cronbach's Alpha for the survey instrument was (0.71) respectively indicating acceptable level of reliability and consistency. The descriptive purposes of the study were determined in mean and standard deviation or frequency and percentage. The comparison of general knowledge information among nurses with different educational levels was examined in Pearson Chi-squared test or Fishers’ exact test. The P-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant difference. The statistical calculations were performed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences 24 (SPSS 24; IBM Corp; USA). Results: The median age and working experience of the nurses were 26.0 and 4.0 years, respectively. Most of the nurses were females (75.4%). Most of the nurses had poor knowledge about general information of neonatal sepsis such as neonatal sepsis definition (69.0%), its manifestations (63.7%). However, most of the nurses had the positive attitudes. In addition, most of the nurses did always or sometimes the intervention, such as monitoring neonate’s general condition (66.1%), measuring temperature (85.9%), monitoring vital signs (52.6%),. Conclusions: The present study showed that the nurses had poor knowledge about neonatal sepsis despite they had the positive attitude with most time the correct intervention.(I used the term of intervention instead of practice which I mean their performances and practices , I used the term for the same purpose.)