ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: Tracheostomy care is a major health issue in various parts of the world. The number of patients with tracheostomy is increasing in both developed and developing countries. Many times the patients die due to lack of knowledge of nurses about tracheostomy care. Thus the main research study is to assess the knowledge, regarding the tracheostomy care among the staff nurses.Further expansion of education programs like health awareness camps, continuing nursing education, can improve self regulatory awareness of tracheostomy care among the staff nurses which may reduce the morbidity and mortality of patients die due to tracheostomy care among the staff nurses working at K.L.E.S Dr. Prabhakar Hospital and MRC, Belagavi, Karnataka. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: 1. To assess the knowledge regarding tracheostomy care among the staff nurses. 2. To develop information booklet on tracheostomy care. METHODS: A non experimental descriptive research design was adopted to carry out the present study non probability purposive sampling technique was used to select 50 staff nurses. Data was collected by means of structured knowledge of questionnaire to assess the knowledge of tracheostomy care. The main study was conducted in ICU’s of Dr. Prabhakar Kore hospital and MRC, Belagavi, Karnataka. The analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics in terms of frequency, percentage, means, median, mode, standard deviation and range. RESULTS: Table 1 revealed distribution of staff nurses with gender, age, education, work, experience, and source of information. Majority of the staff nurses were female 62%, and 38% were male, 52% staff nurses belonged to the age group between 20 -25 years and 56% staff nurses were B.Sc. (N). Majority of the staff nurses have 0-5 years of work experience that is (86%). More than 5 year is (12%), 24.99% of the staff nurses got information through continuing education, 20% through books, 16.2% through workshops and 20% through mass media and others.