Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Nursing Process Training In Improving the Quality of Nursing Care at Machakos Level Five Hospital.

Abstract

Improvement of patient care in any hospital depends primarily on the quality of nursing care. The nurses using the phases of the nursing process can enhance the nursing care of the patient; this is because the nursing process is a systematic way of providing nursing care step by step without missing the required details. The nurse's use the phases of the nursing process which enables them to identify the specific health needs of the patient. Thus, nurses being the professionals who spend 24 hours with the patient have a lot to do for the patient, hence they needed to be trained on the phases of the nursing process to enable them to provide systematic quality nursing care. The purpose of the study was to find out the effectiveness of nursing process training in improving the quality of care in Machakos level 5 hospital. Specifically the study sought to ascertain whether training improved nurse's knowledge and the application of nursing process in the provision of nursing care. The study was done within a period of two months in Machakos level 5 hospital, in Kenya. A cross-sectional descriptive study quantitative research, making use of an exploratory and descriptive design was adopted, utilizing a structured questionnaire and an observation checklist for data collection. The nurses (n=136) employed at Machakos Level 5 Hospital served as the respondents and five wards were visited to review nursing documentation. The data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20.The findings of the study were; the regression analysis revealed that Assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation influence 76.7% (adjusted R square = 0.767) of nursing care quality at Machakos level five hospital. The nurses had undergone nursing process training (n=133; 98%), there was a lack of knowledge in understanding and applying the concepts of the nursing process, especially in formulating the nursing diagnosis. 5 wards were visited to review nursing documentation. The results were despite the nursing process training (n=-73; 60%) of the wards were not implementing all the 5 phases of the nursing process. AssessMent phaSe was dime in all wards (n=5; .100%),' but the other phases Were not done in (n=3; :60%) of the wards. Most of the respondents had adequate knowledge of the nursing process, but they lacked practical skills. The BScN nurses who have intense basic nursing process training and have expertise in nursing process formed (n=5; 4%) of nursing staff in the hospital. Hence the quality of nursing care of patients at Machakos level 5 Hospital did not improve as a result of nursing process training. Recommendations were made for continuation of nursing process trainings to include more of practical's in order to enhance the effective implementation of the nursing process to improve the quality of nursing care of patients at Machakos level 5 Hospital.