Abstract
Aim:
To assess for differences in knowledge of pressure ulcer (PU) prevention and management among nurses working in two metropolitan spinal cord injury (SCI) units, and between nurses and rehabilitation registrars (doctors).
Background:
There is anecdotal evidence of wide variation in PU management. An understanding of current knowledge is fundamental to evidence-based practice implementation.
Methods:
This was a prospective survey, using a multiple choice question format developed with nurse wound specialists. A total of 10 questions assessed PU prevention and 10 assessed management. It was distributed to nurses working at the spinal units and rehabilitation registrars. The results from the groups were analysed for similarities and differences using one- and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests and tests for significance of specific linear combinations of group means.
Results:
The response rate was 79% (19/24) and 71% (20/ 28) from the two SCI units, and 46% (13/28) from doctors. Doctors performed better than nurses on prevention questions (P<0.005) but worse on management (P<0.05). There was a significant difference in management knowledge (P<0.001) between nurses working in the two units but not in prevention knowledge (P<0.5) and interestingly years of experience did not correlate with performance (P<0.2 for prevention and P<0.5 for management questions).
Conclusions:
Rehabilitation registrars score better in prevention questions, but poorer in management questions, which reflects academic rather than experiential knowledge. There are also differences in management knowledge among nurses, based on work area rather than years of experience. Although knowledge does not necessarily reflect practice, this calls for better standardisation and implementation of wound management pathways.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the study participants for giving their time so generously. We also acknowledge the clinical nurse consultants, the nursing unit managers and the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine who helped with the questionnaire design and distribution and collection of completed surveys.
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Gupta, N., Loong, B. & Leong, G. Comparing and contrasting knowledge of pressure ulcer assessment, prevention and management in people with spinal cord injury among nursing staff working in two metropolitan spinal units and rehabilitation medicine training specialists in a three-way comparison. Spinal Cord 50, 159–164 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2011.88
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2011.88
