Status quo of surgical nurses' awareness on respiratory exercise and clinical practice

Abstract

Objective To investigate the status quo of nurses' awareness on respiratory exercise and practice in surgical departments and surgery-related ICU in several hospitals in China. Methods On December 28th, 2015, all of the 93 students in the ICU specialist training course were selected by convenience sampling and surveyed by a self-designed questionnaire. Among the 98, 42 nurses in surgical departments and surgery-related ICU were selected and surveyed about their awareness on respiratory exercise and practice in clinic. Factors influencing the clinical practice were also analyzed. Results 92.8% of nurses in surgical and surgery-related units believed respiratory exercise as useful or very useful. However, only 16.7% evaluated themselves as taking respiratory exercise very seriously in their work, while 11.9% evaluated their co-workers as taking respiratory exercise very seriously in their work. When evaluating themselves and their peer staff in practice of respiratory exercise, percentage of those who guided their patients with respiratory exercise after surgery regularly were only 19% and 16.7%. Only 7.1% of the nursing staff considered clinical practice of respiratory exercise as well done. Investigation on the nurses' comprehension on approaches of respiratory exercise and application showed what most nurses master and do in practice was non-assisted respiratory exercise. It was put forward by the nurses that the primary reason for insufficient clinical practice of respiratory exercise was lack of professional physiotherapist (92.9%) . Conclusions There is a big gap between the nurses' awareness and clinical practice of respiratory exercise. The nurses' awareness and application of respiratory exercise are limited, which leads to an unsatisfactory practice in clinic. Therefore, clinical practice of respiratory exercise to surgical patients can be promoted by training professional physiotherapists, developing necessary training program, setting formal standards, and many other aspects. Key words: Nursing staff; Respiratory exercise; Questionnaire; Surgery