A Crosssectional Study on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Pressure Ulcer among Nurses in Jigme Dorji Wangchuk National Referral Hospital (JDWNRH)

Abstract

The increased incidence of pressure ulcers among inpatient patients has been reported in JDWNRH. As
a result, there was an increase in the length of hospitalization, over utilization of resources and affects
patient’s satisfaction. There was also a lack of adequate evidence on knowledge, attitude and practice for
effective prevention of pressure ulcers. The study was conducted to study the knowledge, attitude, and
practice of pressure ulcers among nurses of JDWNRH. Cross-sectional was used among 389 nurses working
in all inpatients department. The results found that the knowledge on pressure sore was good (64%) but the
attitude (75.1%) and Practice (93.1%) to prevent pressure ulcer was low. Scientific analysis also showed that
knowledge had a significant correlation with working experience (p=0.034), which reveals that the longer
the duration in the service, the more the knowledge was gained. Subsequently, the more the knowledge was
gained, the practice on prevention on pressure ulcer increases (p=0.036). The study found out that retention
of the experienced nurses is extremely important because CME updates the knowledge, which eventually
improves the patient’s care whereas behaviour change remains challenging because of individual attitude
and perception.