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| SHORT COMMUNICATION |
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| Year : 2023 | Volume
: 11
| Issue : 3 | Page : 209-212 |
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Knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurses toward tuberculosis at a tertiary care hospital: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study
Vibha Rani
Department of Pharmacology, Malla Reddy Medical College for Women, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
| Date of Submission | 15-Mar-2023 |
| Date of Decision | 04-May-2023 |
| Date of Acceptance | 19-May-2023 |
| Date of Web Publication | 05-Jul-2023 |
Correspondence Address:
Vibha Rani
Flat 408, Udaya Balaji Residency, 1-1-17 A/B, Opp. Sudarshan Theatre, Jawahar Nagar, RTC X Road, Hyderabad - 500 020, Telangana
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
DOI: 10.4103/mjhs.mjhs_37_23
Tuberculosis (TB) is a communicable disease of great public health importance. Nurses play an important role in treatment adherence, caring with counseling of patients and their family members and can also guide in early detection of side effects produced by anti-TB drugs. So knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAPs) of nurses will have a tremendous role in the delivery of various treatment modalities to TB patients. Present study was carried out to assess the level of KAP regarding TB among nursing staff. This cross sectional study was conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Hyderabad among 115 nurses. Data collection tool was a questionnaire having 11 questions on knowledge, 4 on attitude and 4 on practical aspects of TB. One hundred and fifteen (100%) nurses could tell about the side effects of anti-TB drugs, while 81 (70.4%) told that 6 months is the minimum duration for treatment of new sputum positive TB cases. 96.5% nurses knew about the sample required for diagnosing TB patients while 98.2% felt compassionate toward TB patients and none of the nurses were equipped in wearing N95 masks while treating TB patients. We conclude that nurses had adequate knowledge, good attitude, and satisfactory practical aspects about TB infection though none of them had undergone NTEP training.
Keywords: NTEP, nurses, tuberculosis
How to cite this article:
Rani V. Knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurses toward tuberculosis at a tertiary care hospital: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. MRIMS J Health Sci 2023;11:209-12 |
How to cite this URL:
Rani V. Knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurses toward tuberculosis at a tertiary care hospital: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. MRIMS J Health Sci [serial online] 2023 [cited 2023 Oct 3];11:209-12. Available from: http://www.mrimsjournal.com/text.asp?2023/11/3/209/380485 |
| Introduction | |  |
Tuberculosis (TB) is an air borne chronic infectious communicable disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculi, which mainly affects lungs and also other organs like intestine, skin, lymph nodes, bones and also joints.[1] Major symptoms of TB include cough lasting for 3 weeks or more, fever, hemoptysis and minor symptoms like fatigue, loss of appetite, fever and weight loss.[2] Across the world there are an estimated 10 million incident cases of TB, equivalent to 133 cases/100,000 population according to the 2018 Global TB Report and in India, the estimated incidence of TB is 204/100,000 population in 2017.[3]
Nurses are frontline workers in treating TB patients. They work in close contact with TB patients and play important role in treatment adherence, caring of TB patients and also guide in early detection of side effects of drugs.[4] So nurses play a pivotal role in TB management and also successful completion of patient's therapy.
Thus, nurses play an important role in prevention and control of TB. Along with all necessary training, they also need to be equipped with good knowledge, positive attitude and good practice measures in TB infection.[5] Along with treatment management of TB patients, the nursing faculty are also responsible for training the nursing students. Few studies conducted on knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAPs) toward TB in India among nurses suggests that there is inadequacy in awareness among nurses toward TB.[12],[13] Therefore, this cross-sectional study was undertaken to assess the KAPs of nurses regarding TB.
| Methods | | |
This was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study done among 115 nurses working at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Hyderabad. Institution Ethics Committee permission was taken before conducting the study. Written informed consent was taken and the objectives of the study were explained in brief to the nurses, before administering the questionnaire. Confidentiality of the data shared was assured to all the nurses. The tool for the present study was a questionnaire[6] which was modified and validated for the present study. The questionnaire was divided into 4 sections with a total of 19 questions, out of which 11 was on knowledge, 4 on attitude and 4 questions of practical aspects of TB. The first section included the demographic details of the nurses, the second section consisted of knowledge questions like causative agent, transmission, symptoms of TB while the third section had attitude questions like seriousness about TB disease, compassionate toward TB patients and the fourth section had practical questions which included using of masks, isolation of TB patients. Each knowledge question was allotted one mark for correct answer and zero for wrong answer. Level of knowledge was calculated on the basis of score obtained and was divided into three categories: poor (<3), average (4–8), and good (9–11).
The data obtained were entered into a Microsoft excel document and collected data was expressed in percentages and proportions.
| Results | | |
All nurses were female. 61.7% were GNM. 89.5% were married. All of them undergone the NTEP training with a mean work experience of 2.5 years [Table 1]. Majority had a good knowledge. Almost 80%–90% answered correctly for most of the questions [Table 2]. Majority had a very good attitude toward TB [Table 3]. The practices related to TB among nurses were also up to the mark in majority [Table 4]. [Figure 1] shows distribution of nurses based on their knowledge categories. In the study, 85 (73.9%) are in good category, 19 (16.5%) are in average category while 11 (9.5%) are in poor category. | Table 2: Percentage of correct knowledge answers given by the nurses (n=115)
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 | Table 3: Attitude toward tuberculosis infection control among nurses (n=115)
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| Discussion | | |
In the study, the causative pathogen of TB i.e., bacteria was correctly identified by 92.1% of the nurses which was better when compared to a similar study by Krithika et al.[7] where the response was 79.9%. The study showed that nursing faculty had satisfactory knowledge on various aspects of TB like causative factor, transmission, diagnosis. Also in the study 87.8% nurses could tell that TB is an air borne disease and this response was similar to another study by Gupta et al.[8] where the response was 86%. All the nurses told that TB is a completely curable disease, as this fact is rightly suggested that if the combination of anti TB drugs are taken regularly, it can be completely cured.
It was highly appreciable to know that all the nurses in the study could tell about the side effects produced by antitubercular drugs suggesting that they were having good background about pharmacology of the drugs. Furthermore, a general idea about side effects of these drugs will guide them in early detection and treatment of side effects. 96.5% nurses told that sputum is used to diagnose TB which was far good when compared to similar studies by Ramnika et al.[9] and Neeta et al.[10] where it was 68.8%. 70.4% of nurses could tell about the minimum duration of taking anti TB drugs in case of sputum positive case.
The nursing faculty have good attitude toward TB infection and prevention as shown by the fact that they would definitely visit a doctor if anytime they contacted TB as against another study by Bhandari and Bande[11] where the respondents told that due to fear of being left out, they would not disclose their diagnosis if they were infected with TB. None of the nurses in this study had ever used N95 respirators while treating TB patients. According to recommendations by World Health Organization, personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators should be worn by health workers working with TB patients.
| Conclusion | | |
We conclude that nurses had adequate knowledge, good attitude and satisfactory practical aspects about TB infection though none of them had undergone NTEP training.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank all the nursing faculty for their active participation, cooperation and enthusiasm which helped me in conducting this study.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
| References | | |
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[Figure 1]
[Table 1], [Table 2], [Table 3], [Table 4]
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