International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences (Jan 2023)
Utilisation and Challenges of Standardised Nursing Languages in Nursing Process Booklets in Selected Tertiary Health Institutions in Nigeria
Abstract
Introduction: Over the years, hospitals in Nigeria have employed nursing process booklets, but few have adopted the usage of standard nursing terminology, which may have been a better option to document the level of care provided to patients. Currently, there is no published empirical evidence on the utilisation and challenges of standardised nursing languages in nursing process booklets in Nigeria.The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of standard nursing languages and their difficulties in a few Nigerian tertiary healthcare institutions. Methods: In this study, a descriptive cross-sectional and retrospective design was employed. The medical, surgical, and psychiatric wards of three tertiary healthcare facilities were the three wards that were specifically chosen.Using a simple random sampling method, 427 Nurses and Nursing Process Booklets were chosen. With the threshold of significance set at p < 0.05, SPSS version 25.0 was used for both data administration and analysis. Results: The chosen hospitals had moderate rates of use; 49.1%, 50.8%, and 46.7%. Within the study year (2015–2019), there were variations in documentation quality between the hospitals.The quality of nursing process booklets was viewed positively by the respondents. The difficulties faced by nurses were a lack of motivation, inadequate staffing, and a lack of Standardised Nursing Languages (SNL) understanding. The test of association showed that the specialty area had the highest predictive value (B = 0.790). Nursing documentation quality varied significantly between the three hospitals that were chosen, with mean values of (1.3 ± 0.5; 1.6 ± 0.4; 1.5 ± 0.4) respectively. Conclusion and recommendation: The utilisation level was moderate, and fluctuation in documentation by nurses across the selected years was seen in the hospitals. To enhance the quality of nursing documentation in the nursing process booklets, nurses should be taught in standardised nursing languages.
