Atitudes e conhecimentos dos enfermeiros na prevenção das úlceras de pressão

Abstract

Background: Pressure Ulcers are one of the highly reported iatrogenic injuries on developed contries. Actually they are seeen as an indicator of the healthcare quality and patient safety. (OMS, 2009) Featured as hard healing kind of hounds, they’ve got associated major complications and co-morbidities that make them potencially fatal. According to that, prevention is a central part of it’s control, in which nurses play an important role. Howhever, the absence of knowledges and prevalence of negative atitudes towards this hounds can be responsable for an ineffective prevention and for the high levels of prevalence and incidence worldwide these days. Aims and objectives: This study aims are: to validate the Attitude Towards Pressure Ulcers Tool (APU) and Pressure Ulcer Knowledge Assessment Tool (PUKAT) for portuguese population and to mesure atitudes and knowledges on PU’s prevention, on a sample of nurses and nurse students. Methods: The portuguese version of APU and PUKAT is based on psicometric, conceptual and methodological equivalence to the original validation, in a methodological study of a nonprobablistic sample of 155 nurse students and 147 nurses. The data was collected from January to June 2011. Results: The female gender prevails on this sample (81.1%). 4.5% of the students and 50% of professional nurses have reported having qualification in this field. APU’s factorial analysis reorganized 22 items on 5 factors (importance, responsability, obstacules/barriers, trust on personal effectiveness and competence) that explain 53,695% of the total variance of the scale. Cronbach’s alfa coefficient ranged between 0,672 and 0,746 in a 0,847 total. It was acquired a statistically significant diference (p<0,05) with a positive discriminant power in some of the predefined sub-groups. The layability of the test-retest performed with a week intermission showed correlative r coefficients=0,883 and factorial intraclass correlation in between 0,601 and 0.630. The majority of the inquired showed to be in a positive position on Likert’s scale. Low rates on PUKAT’s accurancy have limited it’s validation. It was obtained an average of 16,6 right anwears on 29 possible for nurses and 14,1 on 29 possible for students, on PUKAT. Conclusion: It was found a valid APU version for the used sample. Although the content of PUKAT was validated it was not possible to do it’s psicometric equivalence. In fact, despite most participants demonstrate a positive atitude towards PU’s prevention, data shows merely a low level of knowledge, highlighting important qualificational gaps.

Date of Award	Jan 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Margarida Maria Giestas Batista (Supervisor)