Knowledge of Nurses Towards Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in a
Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital in Nepal
1585-1588
Correspondence
Valarmathi Selvaraj MSc (Nursing), MSc (Psy)
Lecturer, Nursing program
College of Medical Sciences
Bharatpur, Nepal.
Phone: 00977-9816265311
E-mail: valarmathisubish@gmail.com
Background: Nurses are knowledgeable in handling patients with life threatening conditions and hence are expected to be knowledgeable in performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) techniques.
Aims: To assess the knowledge of nurses towards CPR and to study the association between the nurses knowledge scores and selected demographic variables.
Settings and Design: A questionnaire-based, cross sectional study was performed at the College of Medical Sciences-Teaching Hospital, Bharatpur, Nepal, among the nurses who were working in the hospital during October, 2010.
Methods and Materials: A self-developed questionnaire containing 21 questions was distributed to the nurses and the filled questionnaires were analyzed as per the study objectives. A correct response was given a score of ‘1’ and the wrong responses were given a score of ‘0’.
Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics was used to calculate the mean and the standard deviation and the Kurskal- Wallis test was used to compare the mean scores of the respondents with their demographic variables.
Results: Among the total 175 nurses, 70 of them responded with a response rate of 40%. The mean ± SD age of the respondents was 22.07 ± 2.30 years and their mean ± SD duration of experience was 11.45 ± 2.67 months. The worksites of the respondents varied and there were more than 15 different sites. A relatively high number (n = 8; 11.43%) of the respondents were from the Department of Medicine. The mean± SD of the overall total knowledge scores was 11.45 ± 2.67 (the maximum possible score was 21). There was no significant association between the total scores and age (p = 0.823) and the duration of experience (p = 0.239). However, there was an association between the worksites and the total scores (p = 0.013).
Conclusions: In general, the knowledge of the nurses was found to be low, thus suggesting a need for educational interventions.