Correlation between Nurse's Knowledge and Quality of Nursing Care for Prevention of Pressure Ulcers in Intensive Care Units

Pressure ulcers are a common complication in patients hospitalized in intensive care units. This complication continues to be a major problem in all health care systems and reflects the quality of nursing care in hospitals. The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between nurses’ knowledge and quality of nursing care for prevention of pressure ulcers in intensive care units.
Methods & Materials: This was a descriptive correlational study on a purposive sample of 92 nurses employed in intensive care units of four hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2014. Data were collected through a questionnaire containing demographic and occupational information, the Pieper’s nursing knowledge questionnaire, and a checklist to assess the quality of nursing care for prevention of pressure ulcers. Descriptive and inferential statistics (independent t-test and Pearson’s correlation) were used to analyze data on SPSS software v. 21. The level of significance was considered at P≤0.05.
The study results showed that the average score of nurses’ knowledge of pressure ulcers prevention was a total of 75.7±6.9. The quality of nursing care in more than half of cases (54.3%) was relatively favorable. There was no significant correlation between nurses’ knowledge and the quality of nursing care for pressure ulcers (P=0.86, r=0.01).
In addition to inadequate knowledge of pressure ulcers prevention, the nurses did not fully implement what they knew in clinical practices. Therefore, a more accurate evaluation is recommended in this regard.