Nurses’ Knowledge, Practices and Attitudes about Children Safety Measures

Abstract

Background: children safety is an essential and vital component of healthcare quality. Health care providers face many challenges in today’s health care environment in trying to keep patients safe especially children patient safety. Nurses are well positioned to strengthen the safety net for child care within hazardous hospital environment. Aim: to assess nurses' knowledge, practices and attitudes about children safety measures. The study was a descriptive study that conducted at Pediatric Medical Departments and Critical Care Unit in Minia University Hospital for obstetrics and pediatrics, General Hospital and Masr Elhora Hospital. Sample: A convenient sample of 45 nurses was included in this study. The tools of data collection:1) Pre-designed questionnaire sheet to assess nurse’s knowledge regarding children safety in hospital, 2) safety attitudequestionnaire.3) Observation checklists to assess the safety of nursing care for the children in hospital. Results: More than half of the studied nurse's have Unsatisfactory levels of knowledge related to hospital policies that improve child safety while the majority of them had Unsatisfactory levels of practices regarding children safety. There was statistical significant difference of total knowledge scores of the studied nurses regarding children safety related age, years of experience. About two third of the studied nurse's have average level of attitude related to children safety at hospital. Conclusion: that, were lacking in nurses' knowledge and practices regarding children safety measures in hospital. Recommendations: Developing periodical in services training programs regarding children safety for the nurses working at pediatric departments to improve their knowledge and practices and to be aware of the significance of child safety in their work areas.