Knowledge Regarding Glasgow Coma Scale among Nurses Working at Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Nurses are responsible to evaluate patients systemically and in general. One of the significant difficulties that nurses face during appraisal is the neurological dysfunctions, particularly for patients with coma. The most significant appraisal in the neurological assessment is to survey the level of consciousness (LOC), which is considered as the initial phase in neurological assessment. The present study aimed to assess the Nurse’s Knowledge regarding Glasgow Coma Scale. Methods- Descriptive cross-sectional survey with a quantitative approach was utilized. The study was conducted in a Krishna hospital and medical research Centre which is 950 bedded tertiary care hospital with of 150 Nurses working in the five different intensive care units of the hospital through convenience sampling technique. Ethical approval is obtained from institutional ethics committee. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences, version 20, was used to analyze data. Results- A total 150 study subjects were included in present study. Majority of study subjects 90(60.0%) were in 20-30 Years age group .86% were taught regarding the GCS during their training while 73.3% were not received refresher training on the GCS. Majority of participants (72.0%) in this study demonstrated poor knowledge about the GCS. For the questions on basic theoretical concepts of the GCS, majority of the participants (76.0%) demonstrated poor knowledge on these items, however, applying knowledge of the GCS in clinical scenarios, only 8.7 % of participants were able to answer. Conclusion-Considering the significance of the GCS in checking all categories of patients with altered consciousness to recognize deterioration or improvement in their condition, There should to be a progressively structured approach to teaching the skill with showing the expertise along with demonstrations.