A study on factors contributing to the underutilization of the nursing process at kasama general hospital.

Abstract

This study, was done at Kasama General hospital, which was aimed at determining factors contributing to the under utilization of the nursing process at the hospital. The literature reviewed on the nursing process revealed that only few studies have been done on the utilization of the nursing process especially on the regional and national perspectives. A non interventional descriptive study was done which included a randomly selected sample of fifty (50) bed side nurses, one (1) key informant (the Principal Nursing Officer) who was conveniently selected and an observation from two (2) randomly selected wards. The researcher used a self-administered questionnaire to the sampled respondents to cover aspects of knowledge, utilization, training, in-service training and encouragement. Additional information was collected from the key informant using a self administered questionnaire and an observation schedule was used to gather data on the observations done in the two (2) wards. The study revealed that the majority of respondents (92%) had low level of utilization and (74%) received adequate training on the nursing process despite them utilizing the tool. The results of the study also show that most of the respondents (52%) had high level of knowledge and therefore the underutilization could not arise from the lack of knowledge.