Abstract
Background: An ongoing nursing assessment is the most significant point in the nursing process to be executed in the beginning of every shift which can be accomplished by using different approaches. It needs to be conducted accurately to guide professional nurses’ decision-making ability to further provide holistic nursing care to patients in the intensive care units (ICUs). This study was aimed to assess the ICU nurses’ knowledge regarding ongoing nursing assessment of ICU patients.
 Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional hospital-based study was conducted in Khartoum city, and included 86 out of the 135 participants working in the critical care units of the main governmental hospitals in Khartoum city. Data were collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire after being tested for validity and then analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and correlation. Data were then presented as frequencies and percentages.
 Results: The study participants were aged between 20 and 40 years with a female to male ratio of 3:1, and varied levels of experience. Overall, 71.7% of the studied participants scored good on the standardized knowledge classification tool used, with few areas of knowledge gap, impacted by increased experience. Moreover, 36% of the participants used the ABCDE approach for ongoing nursing assessment, followed by the head-to-toe assessment approach (21%).
 Conclusion: The nurses’ knowledge regarding ongoing nursing assessment was good with a few areas of weakness raising the need for continuous educational and training programs.
Highlights
A nursing assessment is the assembly of data about a patient’s physiological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual needs in order to categorize the existing and potential patient care requirements
The authors excluded 49 questionnaires which were not properly filled resulting in a total of 86 questionnaires with a response rate of 64%. This descriptive study was conducted in the intensive care units (ICUs) of the four main governmental hospitals in Khartoum city, including a total of 86 participants with response rate of 64% (Figure 1)
72.1% of the participants had an experience of 10 years. This is largely due to the migration of the experienced staff to the Arabian Gulf region leaving the juniors without proper guidance (Table 1)
Summary
A nursing assessment is the assembly of data about a patient’s physiological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual needs in order to categorize the existing and potential patient care requirements. An accurate collection of assessment data leads the decision-making and personalized risk assessment required to define a plan of care with specific interventions to be made for each patient [6]. An ongoing nursing assessment is a type of nursing assessment done at the beginning of every shift on every client and the assessment data thereof is used to formulate a plan of care. It needs to be conducted accurately to guide professional nurses’ decision-making ability to further provide holistic nursing care to patients in the intensive care units (ICUs). This study was aimed to assess the ICU nurses’ knowledge regarding ongoing nursing assessment of ICU patients. Conclusion: The nurses’ knowledge regarding ongoing nursing assessment was good with a few areas of weakness raising the need for continuous educational and training programs
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