Influence of Education on Knowledge and Perception of Precautions in Blood Transfusion among Nurses in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Coastal Karnataka

Introduction and aim: Nurses play a crucial role in blood transfusion. Nurses knowledge about the precautions taken during blood transfusion is not appreciable in earlier literature. Thus, the present study was aimed at assessment and evaluation of the level of knowledge among nurses of our hospital as regards the various precautions to be taken in bloodcomponent transfusion. Materials and methods: This interventional cross sectional study was conducted among 100 nurses of the tertiary care hospital attached to Kanachur Institute of Medical Sciences. Institutional ethics committee clearance was obtained prior to the study. The knowledge and awareness of nursing staff was evaluated by a self-administered questionnaire which had two components demographic details and 20 knowledge questions. Pre-test and post-test responses were collected before and after the educational intervention by the principal investigator. SPSS 28 software was used for data analysis. Qualitative variables were presented as frequency and percentage. Quantitative variables as mean or - SD. Chi square test was used to find the association between the variables. P Value Results: Majority of nurses of the present study did not have knowledge about certain theoretical aspects of blood transfusion such as number of lives that can be saved by one unit of blood, time interval between two successive blood donations, volume of blood collected during donation. The educational intervention improved the knowledge of many of the nurses. However, the nurses participated in the study had certain level of prior knowledge in some of the aspects of blood transfusion, thus the improvement after the intervention could not produce statistically significant difference. There was a statistically significant improvement in the overall knowledge among the nurses after the educational intervention. Conclusion: By the present study, it can be concluded that there is need for periodic educational sessions for health professionals, with regards to precautions during blood transfusion. This will enhance performance levels of health professionals both for the benefit of patients and the institution.