Challenges Regarding Application of Nursing Process among Pediatric Nurses at Governmental Pediatric Hospitals in Khartoum State, Sudan

Abstract

Background: The use of nursing process in clinical settings facilitates with high quality nursing care, improves client health outcomes and promotes nursing as a professional and scientific discipline. The biggest problem currently facing the nursing profession is the implementation of nursing process. The overall aim of this study is to assesses the challenges regarding the application of nursing process. Method: the present study is a descriptive cross-sectional hospital-based study, conducted in 2018 on nurses working at three governmental pediatric hospitals in Khartoum State – Sudan. 138 nurses from different departments were enrolled as the sample of the study. As the major instrument of collecting primary data, the researcher developed a structured questionnaire which consisted of three parts. A Likert scale was used to measure the level of nurses’ knowledge about nursing process. The collected data were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The data were presented in form of tabulation and graph. Results: the findings revealed that: one third (33.3%) of the respondents were aged between (24 – 34) years; half (50.0%) of the respondents had a BSc. in Nursing and most of them had work experience of more than 10 years in various departments. The results also indicated that60.9% of the nurses were responsible for more than 10 patients per shift. They further show that while (37.0%) of the nurses had excellent knowledge in nursing process, (63%) of them did not apply nursing process properly. It was also found out that (19.6%) of the respondent nurses applied nursing process all the time to patients who were present in the hospital. The researcher concluded that the level of nurses' practice is poor, whereas the level of knowledge is excellent. Significant factors which affected the application of nursing process were: workload, time and resources. Key terms: nursing process, factors, application,pediatric hospitals.