Background; Administration of enteral nutrition has long been considered the standard of care for nutrition support in critical care units. The study aimed to assess the effect of educational nursing guidelines regarding enteral feeding on nurses' knowledge and practices at critical care units .A quasi-experimental design was used in this study. The study was conducted in general intensive care unit and surgical, emergency care unit at Benha University Hospital. A convenient sample of all available nurses (55) nurses working in the previous setting was used. Two tools were used for data collection; a self-administered questionnaire tool for nurses to assess nurses' knowledge regarding enteral feeding and an observational checklist for nursing practices regarding enteral nutrition. The results of this study revealed that two thirds of the studied nurses were between the ages of 18 to less than 25 years, with Mean ±SD (23.8 ± 2.3) and more than two thirds of them had 1to less than 5 years of experience in ICU nursing. The study concluded that the educational nursing guidelines documented a positive impact on nurses' knowledge and practices regarding enteral feeding at post and follow up implementation of educational guidelines. The study recommended that continuous training programs should be conducted to improve and update nurses' knowledge about care of patients with nasogastric tube. All nurses should be educated and trained about safe administration of enteral feeds and provision of nurses with simple illustrated booklets and posters related to medications' administration via enteral route and food-drugs interactions. |
