Wound care knowledge of assistant nurses

Abstract

Introduction: Wound care requires specific knowledge; it is essential for the nursing staff’s knowledge to be updated in order to apply an efficient dressing with quality and care. Objective: To describe the educational and training profile of assistant nurses and evaluate their wound care knowledge in a public teaching hospital in Zona da Mata, Minas Gerais. Material and method: This is an observational, descriptive and quantitative study which involved 32 inpatient unit nurses. Data was collected from July to October in 2017, through a validated structured questionnaire with questions focusing on the interviewee’s characteristics, such as place of work and aspects related to training, updating and length of work. It was followed by questions about clinical practice in wounds and specific knowledge of wound care. Results: Of the nurses who participated who participated in the survey, 78% reported updating on wound care, 68.8% reported that there is no or do not know of the existence of a wound prevention or treatment protocol in the institution. The hydrogel was the most well-known primary cover used by nurses in wound care for the best known wound care used by participants. According to the instrument used, the general knowledge score of the nurses who participated in the research was considered good. characteristic of participants regarding gender, age, sector where they work, place of training and work shift did not affect the performance of respondents. Conclusion: The general knowledge of the interviewees was considered good. The most frequent update was to ask other professionals about their questions, followed by reading a scientific article, attending conferences and seeking information from the pharmaceutical industry