The Practice of Nursing Process and Associated Factors Among Nurses Working in Public Hospitals of Harari People National Regional State, Eastern Ethiopia: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The nursing process is the framework for providing professional and quality nursing care. The practice of nursing process in part of Africa has not reached the standard that is set by the profession’s regulatory body. The factors that influence nursing process practice need to be understood.  The study aim to assess the practice of nursing process and associated factors among nurses working in public hospitals of Harari region. Method: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted from March – April 2015. Self-administered and structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 174 nurses. The data was entered using Epinfo version 7 then exported into SPSS version 20. In addition to descriptive statistics both bivariate and multivariate logistic regression model was fitted to identify possible factors associated with nursing process practice. Statistical significance was declared with AOR at 95% confidence interval (CI) and P-value of<0.05. Result:-A total of 174 nurses were enrolled in the study making response rate of 98.3%. Almost half of respondents 85 (48.9%) were practiced nursing process. Negligent working environment (AOR: 0.30, [95% CI: (0.104 – 0.882)], nurses working on patient problem and seeing the outcome (AOR: 2.4, [95% CI: (1.101 – 5.181)], low access of training (AOR: 0.39, [95%CI: (0.19 – 0.79)], early discharge of patient (AOR= 2.59, [95% CI: (1.29 – 5.19)], and lack of knowledge (AOR= 0.036, [95% CI: (0.004 – 0.290)] were significantly associated with practice of nursing process. Conclusion: The practice of nursing process in the two facilities studied was suboptimal. Negligent working environment, working on patient problem and seeing the outcome, low access of training, early discharge of patient and low level of knowledge about nursing process were associated with nursing process practice. Nurses’ patient care knowledge in nursing process practice need to be evaluated and monitored periodically in order to provide on service training.

Keywords: Nursing process, practice, Nurse, Knowledge, Attitude, Hospital, Ethiopia