This aim of this study was to assess quality of nursing care for high risk neonate receiving nasogastric tube feeding(NGT). This study is a descriptive design. conducted at Neonatal Intensive Care Units and Surgical Units in Benha Specialized Hospital and Benha Teaching Hospital during the period from May 2007 up to December 2007. The tools of data collection included an interviewing questionnaire to assess nurses' socio demographic data and their knowledge regarding nasogastric tube feeding, and characteristics of high risk neonates, an observation checklist to assess nurse's performance during insertion, feeding and post feeding and attitude scoring system to assess the attitude of the studied nurses toward problems of nasogastric tube. The result of this study revealed that, the mean age of nurses was 21.9 ± 3.3 years. The mean age of high risk neonate was 33.4 ± 2.5 weeks. The study showed that all the studied nurses did not attend any training programs in the field of quality of care for high risk neonates. Regarding to nurse's knowledge the present study showed that 50% of nurses had poor knowledge about concept of high risk neonates, 61.7% of nurses had poor knowledge about time of change nasogastric tube . Meanwhile the majority of nurses having poor knowledge about problems of NGT feeding. Regarding nurses' performance during feeding it was found that 63.3% of nurses were incompetent about feeding through gravity. Regarding assessment attitude the present study showed that 56.7% of nurses had negative attitude about problems of nasogastric tube feeding. The study concluded that more than half of nurses had inadequate knowledge and incompetent performance regarding quality of nursing care for high risk neonate receiving nasogastric tube feeding. and the majority of nurses unaware with complication of nasogastric tube feeding. The study recommended periodical educational training program for nurses working at NICU, Provide procedure book containing all procedure related to feeding of high risk neonate, further studies should be conducted to improve nurses' performance regarding feeding techniques and orientation program for newly appointed nurses to provide them with the needed information related to quality of feeding to high risk neonates. |
