The purpose of this study was to evaluate the knowledge level of pressure ulcer among hospital nurses through a cross-sectional survey by using the pressure ulcer knowledge assessment tool of Beitz et al.(1998). The total of subjects was 160 voluntary participants (60 were from Hospital A and 100 were from Hospital B) working at adult patients' units in two university hospitals located in the same city. None of the hospitals had expert nurses of pressure ulcer nor provided a regular pressure ulcer education program during the past one year. The survey tool consisted of 32 true-false items which were grouped into the risk factors knowledge category(13 items), the wound assessment knowledge category(4 items), and the treatment methods knowledge category(15 items). An internal consistency reliability test of the tool yielded an overall coefficient of 0.72; the coefficient for the risk factors knowledge category was 0.40, that for the wound assessment knowledge category was 0.33; that for the treatment knowledge category was 0.54. The main findings of the study are as follows. 1)Demographic characteristics of the two hospital nurses were similar except for the educational level(p=0.029) and the work units(p=0.001). These observations were maintained even if Hospital A and B were separately compared. 2)The knowledge level of the subjects about pressure ulcer in general was low as indicated by 53.3 points(of 100 possible points) on average. The knowledge level about treatment methods of pressure ulcer was the lowest as indicated by 47.0 points on average. 3)No correlation between the knowledge level of the pressure ulcer and the demographic characteristics of nurses was found except that the knowledge level of I.C.U. nurses was significantly higher(p=0.0003) than that of nurses in other units(p=0.2926) in the case of Hospital A. 4)The knowledge level of nurses in Hospital B was higher than for nurses in Hospital A. The reason was not identified, but it seems that it is related to the role of the I.C.U. or some other factors. The study results confirmed the existing literature that knowledge level of nurses about pressure ulcer is low regardless of age, educational level, or work experience. However, the working place(unit) affected the knowledge level. Further research on the exact reason for the differences in the knowledge level is needed in the future.
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