Abstract:
This study was carried out to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of patient teaching among nurses working in selected tertiary health institutions in Enugu. The objectives of the study were to determine the nurses’ knowledge of patient teaching, attitude towards patient teaching and practice of patient teaching. A cross-sectional descriptive survey design was used for the study in two tertiary health institutions in Enugu. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the two institutions of study. The target population for study was 978 nurses. A sample of 430 nurses was proportionately selected for the study. Self developed questionnaire with open and closed ended questions were used to assess knowledge and practice and four point modified likert scale was used to assess attitude. Cronbatch alpha statistics was used to establish the internal consistency which gave a reliability coefficient of 0.80. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data. Results were presented in tables as percentages, means, and standard deviations. Chi-square, students’ t-test and ANOVA were used to test hypotheses at P<0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that all of the respondents (425=100% have heard about patient teaching, 50.4% indicated correctly meaning of patient teaching, 94.6% had knowledge of content and context of patient teaching, 72.7% had knowledge strategies, 80.9% knew types of patient teaching, and 85.9% knew teaching methods adopted in patient teaching. The attitude of nurses towards patient teaching was positive in both health institutions (means of 3.00 SD= 0.37 (UNTH) (3.06, SD = 0.37 (NOHE) the nurses practice of patient teaching was moderate – 98.1% of nurses engage in patient teaching, 65.2% engage in patient teaching daily, 59.9% do not plan for patient teaching, 62.7% used the unplanned type of patient teaching, 87.1% evaluate patient teaching and only 42.7% dose always. 64.0% of nurses do not document patient teaching because they do not have special chart for documentation. There was significant differences (P<0.05) in the knowledge of patient teaching between nurses of the two institutions and in the practice of patient teaching among nurses with different years of work experience. There was no significant difference (P>0.05) in the attitude of nurses towards patient teaching, the types of patient teaching and the practice of patient teaching among nurses of the two institutions of study.
