The knowledge among student nurses regarding Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Banking

Abstract

What could be more precious than gifting a born child a way to fight against haemopoietic, genetic or immune system diseases for the rest of his or her life? Or helping someone to fight against them with easily available sources. Once umbilical cord was considered as a waste product, but in this new era; it was found that umbilical cord blood is the richest source of haemopoietic stem and pluripotent progenitor cells. This creates the new way of storing them for the further use i.e. Stem cell banking. A study was formulated to assess the knowledge level about umbilical cord stem cell banking among student nurses, compare the knowledge level of student nurses of selected nursing colleges and to associate the knowledge score with selected demographic variables of student nurses from selected colleges. A quantitative research approachwas adopted and non-experimental descriptive research design was used. After getting the administrative permissionpurposive sampling was used to select 100 samplesfrom fourth year B. Sc nursing of selected nursing colleges for assessing the knowledge about umbilical cord stem cell banking.The study findings showed that, 76% of student nurses having moderate knowledge, 23% of student nurses having poor knowledge about umbilical cord stem cell banking. There was no significant association were found between the knowledge score and selected demographic variables. Now ongoing researches are about the uses of stem cell therapy in curing cardiac, genetic, hematologic and endocrine disorders. So, the storing of umbilical cord blood and stem cells at the time of birth will act like a total insurance for lot more disease in life.