Nurse's knowledge and attitude towards care delivery to the aged with cardiovascular diseases

In Iran, 65% of the aged people suffer from cardiovascular diseases that need nursing care in all levels. To enhance the nurse's knowledge and attitude towards prevention of senile disabilities and disorders, especially in case of their occurring leads to reduction if disabilities, morbidity and mortality and an increase in elderly independencies. The present study was conducted to investigate nurse's knowledge and attitude towards care delivery to the aged people. In this descriptive-analytical study that was conducted by census methods, all the nurses working in internal, surgery, and special critical wards of educational hospitals participated in the study. Data collection tool was a questionnaire which was developed in three parts: Demographic information, questions relating to knowledge, and attitude terms. Data analysis was performed by SPSS Software and by using one-sided variance analysis, t test and Pearson correlation coefficient in P<0.05. Totally, 81 nurses were studied 72.8% of them were nursing school graduates and 44.4% were between 20-30 year of age. 42% had less than 6 years of job background. Mean knowledge score was 8.65±3.37. In this regard, 21% of nurses obtained high and 53.1 % of them low scores. Mean attitude score was 41.44±3.81, 23.87% of nurses obtained high and 55.6% of them low scores. There was no significant relationship between knowledge and attitude with demographic information. Results of this study revealed the poor knowledge and attitude of nurses about care delivery to elderly people with cardiovascular diseases. This poor knowledge and attitude can be improved by continuous planned education and by planning retraining courses and holding educational workshops for nurses.