A Comparative Study of Nurses Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Concerning Fluid Therapy in Children in Public versus Private Hospitals in Erbil City

Abstract

Background and objectives: Dehydration caused by diarrhea is considered as a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among children all over the world, fluid therapy remain the most effective methods to treat dehydration. Nurses are responsible for initiating, monitoring, terminating, knowing preventing and complications of intravenous fluid therapy. The main aim of the study was to compare nurses’ knowledge, attitude, and practice concerning fluid therapy in children in public versus private hospitals.Methods: A comparative study design was conducted in children hospitals in Erbil City. A randomized sampling technique was used for enrolling 98 nurses from three pediatric hospitals; from three pediatric hospitals; 70 from Rapareen Public Hospital other 28 nurses from Lala and Consultant Medical City Private Hospitals. The data were collected through direct interview and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics (paired Samples t-test) using SPSS 22.0.Results: The results revealed that highest percentage of nurses age group were 22-28 years, 67.1% %were female in public hospital, about 34.3% and 64.3% graduated from institutes in both hospitals. there was no significant difference between the nurses socio-demographic characteristics from public hospital and private hospitals. There was a significant difference between the nurses from public hospital and private hospitals regard-ing their KAP. The nurses from private hospital have better KAP than public Hospital.Conclusion: Knowledge, attitude, and practice of fluid therapy among nurses of Rapareen Public Hospital were poor, while the nurses from private hospitals had an acceptable level of knowledge, attitude, and practice of fluid therapy.