Knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses regarding pulmonary tuberculosis in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Knowledge, attitude and practices of nurses can have a significant effect on the delivery of health services to pulmonary tuberculosis patients.Information regarding this can help in modifying and improving the training programs for nurses working in various health facilities.Objectives: To study the knowledge, attitude and practices of nurses regarding pulmonary tuberculosis in an academic hospital.Methods: A cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted over a period of one month at Kasturba Hospital, Manipal, Karnataka.202 (89.8%) out of the 225 nurses who were approached agreed to take part in the study and were included in the analysis.The data was analysed using SPSS 16.0., p values were calculated using chi-square test.Results: 79 (39.1%) respondents were worried about getting tuberculosis from patients.37 (63.8%)subjects who had work experience in a tuberculosis ward as compared to 58 (40.3%) who had never worked in a TB ward were able to write the expanded form of DOTS (p = 0.002).Only 4.5% of respondents collected sputum in an open area.Regarding the measures taken to reduce transmission of TB infection in the ward it was found that 143 (70.8%) respondents followed the correct practices.It was noted that only 86 (42.6%) subjects displayed satisfactory level of awareness.Conclusion: Majority of the respondents were not choosing the right location for sputum collection.With less than fifty per cent of the respondents having satisfactory level of awareness there is a need to further strengthen the training and skill monitoring programs.