Community nurses' knowledge and nursing care skills in caring for critically ill survivors in Kuantan and Pekan, Pahang : a Knowledge Transfer Program (KTP)

Abstract

Some cases of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) survivors discharge from hospital to home might require the enteral feeding and tracheostomy care for continuing support. From the literature, several problems related to management of ICU survivors in community setting were found such as poor management on enteral nutrition and tracheostomy care, poor uptake of available education for community nurses, and health care professional lack of relevant skills and knowledge on enteral nutrition and tracheostomy care. This research sought to identify community nurses’ knowledge and nursing care skills on enteral nutrition and tracheostomy care in caring for critically ill survivors through an intervention, Knowledge Transfer Program (KTP). A total of 82 community nurses from Kuantan and Pekan were participating using convenience sampling. Throughout the KTP, community nurses were assessed on pre and post-test knowledge on enteral nutrition and tracheostomy care using Multiple Choice Questionnaires (MCQs), post-test nursing care skills assessment on enteral nutrition and tracheostomy care using Nursing Care Skills Checklists, and reflection after the KTP using Reflection Notes. The findings indicated that there improvement on pre and post-test community nurses’ knowledge on enteral nutrition and tracheostomy care. 89% and 87.8% of them showed an adequate knowledge after the post-test knowledge on enteral nutrition and tracheostomy care for caring critically ill survivors respectively. For nursing care skills, most of them showed satisfactory nursing care skills for enteral nutrition: nasogastric tube insertion, nasogastric tube feeding and health education on enteral nutrition, and tracheostomy care: tracheostomy suctioning, tracheostomy dressing and health education on tracheostomy care. Five categories of main themes for reflection on the KTP: community nurses’ knowledge, community nurses’ nursing care skills, community nurses’ thought and feeling, community nurses’ self-improvement and community nurses’ experience. These results demonstrate the success of KTP in achieving the objective of this study.