Knowledge and practice of primary care nurses about autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the knowledge and practice of nurses from primary health care units about autism spectrum disorder. Method: Cross-sectional, quantitative study with 42 primary care nurses from Teresina, Piauí. A questionnaire on professional characteristics and knowledge was used. Simple frequency analyses and associations between variables were performed, adopting a maximum likelihood test with p‹0.05. Results: There was a predominance of nurses aged 23 to 72 years, female (95.2%) and with more than ten years of experience (78.6%). Most (95.2%) reported insufficient knowledge during the graduation, 88.1% assisted or suspected of children with characteristics of autism spectrum disorder in childcare consultations, 85.7% did not know screening instruments and none received training from the service. Medium level of knowledge (66.7%) prevailed, but with deficits in content on characteristics and etiology. There was a statistically significant association between level of knowledge and age group (p=0.033). Conclusion: There is a need for appropriate undergraduate training and continuing education for professionals.