Nurses' Knowledge and Performance for the Care of Patients Undergoing Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Background: Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) endoscopy is one of the most commonly performed invasive procedures in the clinical practice for either diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. Endoscopy nurses play a critical role in ensuring that endoscopy is both safe and of high-quality. Objective: To assess nurses' knowledge and performance for the care of patients undergoing gastrointestinal endoscopy. Settings: The study was conducted at three settings at Alexandria, Main University Hospital, Medical Research Institute in the Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Units, another private hospital (specialized hospital for gastroenterology & Hepatology). Subjects: All available nurses (n=70) at the time of data collection and are providing direct care for patients undergoing gastrointestinal endoscopy working in the above-mentioned settings. Tools: Two tools will be used to collect the necessary data, Tool I: Self-administered Nurses' Knowledge for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy interview schedule, Tool II: Nurses' Performance Observational Checklist. Results: The results show the frequency distribution of the studied nurses according to their overall knowledge score regarding the gastrointestinal endoscopy. It was observed that 61.4% of the studied nurses had fail level of knowledge related to the gastrointestinal endoscopy, 15.7% of them had fair level knowledge, while 5.7% of them had good level of knowledge. In addition, only 5.7% of them had very good level of knowledge and 11.4% of them had excellent knowledge level. According to infection control for GI Endoscopes; the result shows that the majority of studied nurses 75.7% had fail performance level, while 2.9% of them had fair performance level and 21.4% had very good performance level.Overall Nurses' Performance for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Observational revealed that, the majority of the studied nurses 88.6% had fail performance level, on the other hand 11.4% fair performance level. The study revealed that statistically significant relation between the nurses' knowledge level and the attendance of gastrointestinal endoscopy training program(s), The study revealed that no statistically significant relation between the overall nurses' performance level and their socio-demographic characteristics, and The study revealed that highly statistically significant relation between the overall nurses' knowledge and over all nurses' performance. Conclusion: the study revealed highly statistically significant relation between the overall nurses' knowledge and over all nurses' practice. Recommendations: Periodic assessment of nurses' knowledge and performance regarding the care of the patients undergoing gastrointestinal endoscopy to continuously updating their knowledge and performance and Periodic in services training to maintain the good level of knowledge and performance.