Nurses' Perspectives on Clinical Oxygen Administration at Omdurman Teaching Hospital 2015

Abstract

Nurses play a pivotal role in the administration of oxygen therapy in patients at risk of respiratory dysfunction. The failure of nurses to recognize and respond to respiratory dysfunction may result in patients suffering respiratory related adverse events such as unexpected death. The aim of this study was to assess the competence of nurses regarding administration of oxygen therapy. Methods: The study is a descriptive cross-sectional hospital-based study conducted in emergency department at Omdurman Teaching Hospital. The study enrolled all nurses at the Emergency Department of the mentioned hospital (n=67). The data were collected by using a questionnaire and an observation checklist, and then they were processed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) – version (16), and presented in simple frequency tables, figures and cross tabulations. The collected data was managed using Likertscale to measure the association between demographic data of the nurses and their qualification, whichwas checked using P-value 0,05.Theresults of the study revealed that: nurses knowledge about the major indications of oxygen administration was fair, whereas their knowledge about devices that deliver low flow rate oxygen was poor. The results also showed that about half of the respondent nurses did not know the normal oxygen saturation (SPO2) and most of nurses did not monitor oxygen saturation after administered oxygen. Association between nurses' qualification and their level of knowledge about the major indications of oxygen administration was significant (P-value =0.04); conversely, the association between the nurses' experience and their knowledge of the methods used to assess patients' needs to oxygen administration was not significant (P-value =0.83).