Nurse's knowledge and practices towards IMCI approach when caring for children in Lusaka urban,Zambia.

Abstract

The Integrated Management for Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) is a strategy that provides integrated training and support for health workers on management of conditions such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, anaemia, malnutrition, measles and HIV/ AIDS infection. The prevalence of childhood illnesses demands that special attention be given to this strategy. The aim of this study was to determine Nurse's Knowledge and Practice towards IMCI in the care of children. Literature review was done according to global, regional and national perspectives in regard to IMCI. The review showed that the IMCI strategy could improve performance of health workers including nurses to adequately assess sick children. It was reveled by WHO that children receiving care from health workers trained in IMCI are likely to receive correct prescription for drugs than those receiving care from health workers not trained in IMCI. This was attributed to the fact that nurses trained in IMCI have knowledge in assessing children systematically and this reduces the chance of missing occult symptoms in a sick child. To achieve the research objectives of the study, a descriptive quantitative research design was used. The study was conducted in Lusaka urban clinics. A sample size of 50 respondents, working in the three health centres were selected using simple random sampling method. Data on knowledge and Practice of Nurses in line with IMCI was collected using a self-administrated questionnaire. Initially, a pilot study was conducted at the University Teaching Hospital in order to test the research instrument-questionnaire which paved way for necessary changes to be made. Data was entered onto a data master sheet, and then analyzed manually. Majority of the respondents (44%) were within the age group between 30 and 40 years, 16% of the respondents were aged between 20 and 30 years, 22% of respondents were aged between 40 and 50 years and 4% of respondents were fifty (50) years and above. Most (26%) of the respondents had been in service for ten to fifteen years, followed by the other group of respondents (24%) who had served for fifteen to twenty years. The study further revealed that the majority of respondents (66%) had medium knowledge, 22% had high knowledge and 12% had low knowledge on IMCI. Of those respondents who had high knowledge, majority (55.6%) were Registered Midwives. On the other hand, the findings showed that despite the respondents having high knowledge on IMCI, they had bad practices towards IMCI approach.