Knowledge,practices and barriers of preoperative patients teaching among nurses working in operating theatres at referral teaching hospitals in Rwanda.

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.