Abstract:
Background: The preoperative teaching is very important to surgical clients in freeing them
from anxiety and post-operative complications. Fear and anxiety are more common
physiological and psychological responses in clients waiting for anesthesia and surgery.
Aim of the study: The aim of this study to assess knowledge, practices and barriers of
preoperative patients teaching among nurses working in operating theatres at referral teaching
hospitals in Rwanda.
Methods of the study: A quantitative analytical cross-sectional study design was used. It was
conducted among 90 nurses working in operating theatres at referral teaching hospitals in
Rwanda by using a stratified random sampling strategy for reaching the sample size of 74
nurses. The data were analyzed through the descriptive and inferential statistics such as
bivariate and linear regression models in SPSS program version 21. The results from the
study were presented in tables.
Results: The findings from this study revealed that the highest percentage 32 (43.2%) of the
participants were in the age group of 35-44; half 37 (50%) of respondents had advanced
diploma in nursing and out of 70, 58 (83.0%) of participants received the informal training.
The majority 67(93.0%) of nurses working in operating theatres at referral teaching hospitals
had high level of knowledge on preoperative patients teaching while 72(97.3%) of nurses
working in operating theatres had poor practice of preoperative patients teaching. The
bivariate analysis revealed a significant correlation between knowledge and practice with Pvalue of 0.023 while regression analysis revealed the significant association between working
period in theatre and knowledge score of participants with P-value of 0.001. The main
barriers to practice of preoperative patients teaching were lack of time 53 (71.6%), closefitting operation in theatre 45(60.8%), daily workload 48(64.9%) and shortage of theatre
nursing staff 57(77%).
Conclusion: This study revealed that nurses working in operating theatres at referral teaching
hospitals in Rwanda have good knowledge about the preoperative teaching but the practice is
very poor. There is a need to continue to train officially the perioperative nurses in Rwanda
for improving the practices in perioperative nursing field.
