Nurses’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices regarding feeding of low and very low birth weight infants: a cross-sectional study at tertiary referral hospitals in Rwanda.

Abstract

Background: Neonatal enteral nutrition is a pillar of any management and care for a preterm neonate. To make it adequate, nurses need sufficient knowledge, positive attitude and good practice. Objectives: This study aimed to assess knowledge, attitudes and practices of nurses regarding nutrition of neonates, especially preterm infants in neonatal units at tertiary referral hospitals in Rwanda. Methods: This study is a descriptive, cross-sectional study. It was conducted on all nurses working in neonatal units of the tertiary referral hospitals in Rwanda that are CHUB, CHUK and RMH. A questionnaire with Likert scale was used to collect data. This study was carried out through two months, from January to February 2020. Data analysis was done with SPSS version 20. Results: In total, 47 respondents have completed the evaluation. Of these, 83% were female and 85% were married. The mean age was 43 years. The percentage of correct answers was 65% upon knowledge evaluation. Most of these correct answers (57%) were provided by nurses aged between 31 and 40 years. Low rate of correct answers was noticed for the items, including recommended trophic feeding volume (57%, n=24), calories required for a newborn growth (21%, n=10), and agreement with the benefit of starting feeding before 4 days of life (43%, n=20). On attitudes’ evaluation, 53% of respondents disagreed that another person who was not a nurse could feed a newborn infant. 43% of respondents disagreed that early initiating oral feed could cause NEC versus to 38% who agreed. 64% of nurses disagreed that late initiating oral feeding is better than earlier. On practical evaluation, 36% of nurses reported to always delay feeding because of being busy with other activities while one nurse reported to have never inserted an orogastric tube. Conclusion: Nurses working in tertiary referral hospitals have shown an acceptable level of knowledge, a positive attitude and, for most of them, a relative high level of practice regarding infant nutrition. However, they are lacking updated knowledge in some areas of their daily practices.