Assessment of nurses' knowledge about nursing documentation

Abstract EN

Objective : to identify the nurses' knowledge regarding nursing documentation.

Methods: Observational study was conducted throughout the period (June-October-2011) the sample consisted of (150) nurse working in two main teaching hospitals in Nineveh governorate.

(Al- Salam and Al-Jamhori).

Self-administered questionnaire was developed after reviewing many related literatures.

Validity of the tool was identified through consultation of seven experts, while reliability was checked through the split-half technique to measure the internal consistency (r = 0.87).

The final draft of the tool composed of two aspects ; principles and purposes.

Each item of the tool had two options (No = 0 ; Yes = 1).

Data were collected through an interview method.

Results : More than half of items (53.97 %) concerning principles, and (28.57 %) of items of purposes were got level of knowledge, while the other items got moderate level of knowledge, but none of them got high level of knowledge.

Educational level of nurses had significant association with aspects documentation (Principles and Purposes).

Conclusion : The study concluded that knowledge regarding purposes of documentation was better than knowledge regarding principles of documentation, while there were some deficit in what and how to document.

Recommendation : It recommended that nursing documentation might be covered widely in the nursing school curriculums, in addition to carry out such researches aiming to assess or evaluate nursing records.