A Study on the Nurse's Recognition and Performance in Intravenous Therapy Management

Kim, Myung Hee; Kim, Youn Hwa

Abstract

The purpose of this study were to identify nurse's recognition and performance and to represent the factors of hindrance in the IV therapy management. The subjects were 420 nurses who worked at five general hospitals in Pusan. The data were collected using a questionnaire and the period of data collection was from January 1 to January 31, 1998. The instrument for this study was made by author oneself on the basis of guidelines Simmons et al., CDC' Stanley' and Kurdi' guideline, Clinical Nurses's Association' that consist of 68 items for 5 fields ; pre-injection, just before-injection, needle-injection, during injection, post-injection field. Cronbach Alpha coefficient of recognition and performance in the IV therapy management was .93 and .87. The data were analyzed by a SPSS program using frequency, percent, paired t-test, t-test and oneway ANOVA. The results obtained were as follows : 1. The mean score of recognition in IV therapy management was significantly higher than that of performance(t=5.86, P<.001). 2. The items of lower than mean score of each fields in performance were the identification of drugs, hands washing, patient methods of the injection site and the rubber stopper in bottle, the use of disposable gloves, mask and eye goggles at the chemotherapy preparation, use of tape and armboard, changing the IV tubing, labeling the dressing over the injection site, observation and recordings of patient's condition after medication and confirmation of the needle length at the needle removal. 3. The factors of hindrance on IV therapy were "having no time", "insufficiency of goods", "unknowing of methods", "no disadvantage", and "factors of doctor's doing". the most important factor was "have no time", especially item of hands showed high frequency in the following items ; "insufficiency of goods" in the use of disposable gloves, mask and eye goggles at the chemotherapy preparation, "unknowing of methods" in the certification of drugs compatibility, "no disadvantage" in the labeling the dressing over the injection site, and "factors of doctor's doing" in the changing the subclavian catheter dressing and checking the glucose level during the TPN infusion. In conclusion, there is necessity of educational program which can improve the nurse's knowledge of drugs, disinfection methods, comfort of patient and recordings in IV therapy management and financial aids such as setting up the sink, giving of paper for reducing the factors of hindrance for IV therapy management.