Staff nurses' knowledge and perceived responsibilities for delivering care to patients with intestinal ostomies: a cross-sectional study.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to explore the opinions of nurses regarding their knowledge of and perceived responsibility for providing ostomy care.

SUBJECTS AND SETTING

The target population of this descriptive study was staff nurses working in an acute care hospital in Ankara, Turkey.

METHODS

Data were collected by a questionnaire that included 2 sections. The first section queried descriptive information about the nurses, the perceived responsibility for providing ostomy care for patients. The second section included 54 items that focused on knowledge about stoma care.

RESULTS

Evaluating the answers of the nurses to all statements in general (54 propositions), the median value of the "I do not know/false" answers (27.50) was observed to be close to the median value of the "true" answers (26.5). These results indicated that the staff nurses' knowledge of ostomy care was not at the desired level. Responses from section 2 indicated that nonspecialty practice staff did not consider stoma care as their responsibility. Factors that influenced knowledge of ostomy care were number of years working as a nurse, level of education, level of reviewing professional literature on ostomy care, and participation in scientific meetings on the subject.

CONCLUSIONS

Study findings reveal that knowledge level of nonspecialty nurses about intestinal stoma care is inadequate, and most staff nurses did not consider themselves responsible for stoma care.