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Preethy Maria Paul
Nandini M
Hypothermia is increasingly recognized as a major cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality in resource poor settings. The World Health Organization recognizes new-born thermal care as a critical and essential component of essential new-born care. Nurses, as a primary care giver must be aware of neonatal hypothermia and measures to prevent it. Hence, the study was undertaken to assess the effect of Standardized WHO clini cal guidelines on knowledge and practice of staff nurses regarding prevention of neonatal hypothermia in a selected hospital, Thrissur. The other objectives of the study were to find out the relationship between knowledge and practice and to associate the level of knowledge and practice of staff nurses regarding prevention of neonatal hypothermia with their selected demographic variables. The design of the study was pre experimental one group pre test -post test design over 30 staff nurses. Pre test was done using structured knowledge questionnaire and 3 point Likert scale for assessing the practice. Following which, the researcher provided the Standardized WHO clinical guidelines on prevention of neonatal hypothermia. Post test was done after 7 days and the analysis shows that there is a significant increase in knowledge and practice score of staff nurses after providing the standardized WHO clinical guidelines on prevention of neonatal hypothermia. The result shows no correlation between the knowledge and p ractice of staff . There was a significant association between the knowledge score with the clinical experience and educational qualification of the staff nurses, but there was no association between practice score with their selected demographic variables. Thus the study concluded that the Standardized WHO clinical guidelines was effective in improving the knowledge and practice of staff nurses regarding prevention of neonatal hypothermia.
Keywords: Staff nurses; standardized WHO clinical guidelines; neonatal hypothermia; knowledge; practice