Family Practice and Palliative Care (Sep 2020)
Knowledge level of nursing home employees on urinary incontinence
Abstract
Introduction: Urinary incontinence is a common public health problem that increases in frequency with aging. The role of nursing home staff is important in the correct management of this problem. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of knowledge about urinary incontinence among healthcare personnel and care workers at nursing homes.Methods: This descriptive study was conducted with workers caring for the elderly and healthcare personnel working at nursing homes affiliated with the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services at the city center of İzmir. The Turkish version of the Incontinence Quiz, for which a Turkish validity and reliability study was conducted by Kara et al., was used as the data collection tool in this study. Data for the study were collected from nursing homes between January and February 2020.Results: The study was conducted on 205 employees (care workers and healthcare personnel). The mean score of nursing home employees from the Turkish Incontinence Quiz was 6.55 ± 2.57. Comparison of the knowledge scores of participants based on their occupation showed that workers caring for the elderly had a lower score than healthcare personnel group (p lt;0.001). According to the educational status and number of years worked, university graduates (p lt;0.001) and those who had worked for ≥ 16 years (p=0.032) had significantly higher scores.Conclusion: This study showed that nursing home employees had moderate level of knowledge about urinary incontinence. Moreover, education and experience were associated with a higher level of knowledge.
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