Assessment of nurses’ knowledge and practice on measures to prevent increase in intracranial pressure among neurosurgical patients at two selected hospitals

Abstract

Raised intracranial pressure is a common condition among neurosurgical patients admitted in hospitals and imposes significant consequences to patient health and a burden to relatives. Research has shown that 50-75% traumatic brain injury and other neurosurgical cases presented with an increased intracranial pressure .Mortality rate resulting from the increase of ICP is estimated around 20% .ICP leads to disability or to death in post traumatic brain injury and in neurosurgical patients in general. The aim of this study was to assess nurses’ knowledge and practice of measures to prevent increase in intracranial pressure among neurosurgical patients. Methodology: This study utilized a quantitative research approach and a cross-sectional descriptive design among100 nurses at CHUK and RMH. The study participants were selected by convenient sampling technique. A self administered questionnaire and an observation check list were used to collect data and a response rate was 100%.Descriptive statistics in SPSS were used to generate frequencies, means and standard deviation. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was calculated to test the correlation between nurses’knowledge, and practices. For correlation a p-value of 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: The nurses overall mean knowledge score was (mean 49.18, SD=18.90) and 52 % of respondents scored below and were considered in the category of poor knowledge about general knowledge regarding increased ICP .Whereas the nurses overall mean knowledge score was(mean 60.60,SD=14.65) and 57 % of respondents scored below the mean percentage and were considered in the category of poor knowledge about knowledge of preventives measures regarding increased ICP.Among 20 nurses observed,the overall mean score for practices of respondents was 44.68 and SD=17.59and about 80 % of the respondents had score below mean score and considered having poor practices and the remaining 20% had good practices of intracranial pressure prevention. There was a negative correlation between the knowledge and the practices towards increased ICP prevention (r=-0.242, p=0.303). Conclusion: Knowledge of the nurses regarding ICP signs, contributing factors and preventive measures were poor. Practice was also poor.