Assessment of Nurses’ Performance for Patient with Spinal Cord Injury

Background: A spinal cord injury (SCI) is the damage of the tight bundle cells and nerves that sends and receives signals from the brain to and from the rest of the body. This damage could result temporary or permanent changes in sensation, movement, strength, and body functions below the site of injury. Nursing assessment of spinal cord injury is an integral part of nursing care. Aim: This study aimed to assess nurse's performance for patient with spinal cord injury. Design: A descriptive explorative design was utilized for the conduction of this study. Setting the study was carried out in General intensive care unit at El demrdash Hospital. Ain shams university hospitals. The sample of the study. A convenient sample of thirty five nurses. Tools for Data collection . Tool (I) Self-administered Questionnaire : First part: it is concerned with the characteristics of nurses under study such as age, gender, educational level, years of experience. Second part: It was concerned with the assessment of nurses' level of knowledge regarding to care of patient with spinal cord injury. Tool (II) Nurses’ practice observational Checklist (Appendix II) . It is concerned with the assessment of the nurses’ practice regarding care of patient with spinal cord injury. Tool (Ⅲ) Nurse’s attitude Likert scale toward care of patient with spinal cord injury (Appendix Ⅲ). It is concerned with assessment of the nurse’s attitude toward caring of patient with spinal cord injury. Results: The main results revealed that: mean age of the studied nurses was 29.2 ±7.2 years, while 54.3% of the studied nurses were females and 60% of them were technical institute nursing graduates and reported that no availability of manual /booklet regarding care of patient with spinal cord injury. Also, (71.4%) of the studied nurses had unsatisfactory level of knowledge and (82.9%) of them got unsatisfactory practices regarding care of patients with spinal cord injury respectively. While, (94.3%) of them had negative attitude toward caring of patient with spinal cord injury. Conclusion based on the findings of the current study, it can be concluded that majority of the nurses were got unsatisfactory knowledge, practice and negative attitude regarding care of patient with spinal cord injury. Recommendations: Develop and implement an educational program regarding care of patient with spinal cord injury based on the nurses' needs.