Relationship between nurse's knowledge and practice regarding the principles of nursing documentation among nurses affiliated to Kerman Medical University hospitals

Documentation is one of the most important practices in nursing. It sounds that nothing can reflect the total amount of nursing care giving patients as documentation does. Studies indicate that nurses spend on estimated 1/3 of total shift of activities. The aim of this study was to determine relationship between nurse's knowledge and practice regarding the principles of nursing documentation among nursing stuff affiliated to hospitals of Kerman medical university. Using descriptive- analytic study method, 226 nurses who were working in one of the four hospitals of Kerman medical university were selected through quota sampling. The data were collected through a researcher-made instrument that consisted of demographic characteristics, a questionnaire assessing their knowledge and a checklist for their practice. Descriptive and inferential static were used to analyze the data. All statistics were computed by SPSS software using Indices of central and dispersion and Kruscal Wallis, man-whiney u and spearman correlation coefficient. The study indicated that 46.5% of nurses had moderate knowledge and also 85% of nurses had poor practice. It was demonstrated that there is a significant difference between nurse's knowledge and practice regarding the principles of nursing documentation (P<0.001) with positive correlation coefficient. However the value (r=0.24) didn’t show a strong relationship between them. It was also a significant difference between passing educational course of nursing documentation and nurse's knowledge (P<0.001). The rest of demographic characteristics didn’t have any significant difference with their knowledge and practice. The study revealed a weak relationship between knowledge and practice. Besides knowledge and applying it in practice, other contributor issues should be recognized and meet appropriately.