Journal of Applied Medical Sciences

Knowledge and Attitude of Nurses on the Practice of Surgical Conscience in Surgical Management of Patients at University College Hospital, Ibadan.

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• Abstract 

  Surgical conscience is an in-built discipline of consistent awareness and practice of surgical rules in an individual. Increased cost of treatment, prolonged hospital stay coupled with patients’ agony has increased their awareness of their legal rights. This study aimed at assessing nurses’ knowledge and attitude on the practice of surgical conscience in University College Hospital. Ibadan. This descriptive study consists of 159 nurses (randomly selected) who are working in the purposely selected surgical units. A self -developed 33 item questionnaire was designed to capture the socio-demographic data and the objectives of the study. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data at alpha 5%. Majority (79.2%) of respondents were females. Almost (96%) all respondents have good knowledge of surgical conscience.  47.8% saw it as a guiding principle. There is a significant relationship between nurses knowledge and practice of infection control (0.00<0.05), there was also a significant relationship between their years of experience and attitudes towards surgical conscience (0.00<0.05) but there was no significant relationship between barriers and surgical conscience practices (0.22>0.05). There may be need to explore systemic issues, the practice of surgical conscience should also be encouraged and personnel should demonstrate excellent practice towards the use of all available resources to ensure patient safety.

  Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Nurses, Surgical patient, Surgical conscience.