Nurses' Performance Regarding Urinary Catheter Care among Critically Ill Patients: Suggested Educational Guidelines

Abstract

Background: Urinary catheterization is the insertion of a catheter into a patient' bladder. The catheter is used as a conduit to drain urine from the bladder into an attached bag or container. Urinary catheterization is employed in hospital and nursing home settings to maintain urine output in patients who are undergoing surgery, or who are confined to the bed and physically unable to use a bedpan. Critically ill patients who require strict monitoring of urinary output are also, frequently catheterized. Aim: This study aimed to assess nurses' performance regarding urinary catheter care among critically ill patients. Design: A descriptive design was utilized for the conduction of this study. Setting: this study was conducted in critical care unit, which is affiliated to Shabin Alqanatir hospital. Subjects: A Convenience sample of all the available nurses (forty-five) were included in the study. Tools: Three tools; namely nurses' knowledge questionnaire, nurses' practice observational checklists and nurses' attitude questionnaire. Results: the main results of this study showed that, most of the studied nurses were having satisfactory total level of knowledge, practice regarding care of patients with urinary catheter, and most of them had positive attitude. Conclusion: There were satisfactory level of performance among nurses under the study Recommendations: the study should be replicated on large sample and in different hospitals setting in order to generalize the results.