Nurses' Performance Towards Intra-Hospital Safe Transportation of Critically Ill Patients: Suggested Guidelines

Background: Intra-hospital transport of the critically ill patients refers to inter-departmental transfer of patients within the hospital for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, it is a complex, high risk procedure for such group of patients. Aim: Assess the nurses' performance towards intra hospital safe transportation of critically ill patients: suggested guidelines. Design: A descriptive exploratory design was utilized to achieve the aim of the study. Setting: The present study was carried out at Beni-Suef University hospital. Study subjects: All available nurses no=80 (50 nurses at intensive care unit and 30 nurses at coronary care unit) who were working in the selected setting Data Collection Tools: I. Nurses' self-administered questionnaire, it included nurses' demographic characteristics and nurses' knowledge, II - Nurses' practice observational checklist. III. Nurses' attitude likert scale. Result: concerning nurses knowledge, 77.5% of the studied nurses had moderate level, while 15% of them had low level and 7.5% had high level. Regarding nurses practice, 62.5% of them had moderate competence level while, 30% had high competence level and 7.5% of the nurses had low competence level. With respect to nurses attitude, 57.5% of them had negative attitude, 37.5% of them had neutral attitude and 5% had positive attitude. Conclusion: More than three quarters of the studied nurses had moderate level of knowledge, more than two thirds of them had moderate competence level and more than half of them had negative attitude towards intra-hospital safe transportation of critically ill patients. Additionally, there was statistically significant positive correlation between total scores of knowledge, practice and attitude among the studied nurses and highly statistically negative correlation between adverse events occurred and the study variables. Recommendations: Importance of implementing continuous specialized training courses for ICU staff to improve nurses' performance towards intra-hospital safe transportation of critically ill patients.Continuous application of intra-hospital transportation guidelines, protocols and checklists in all intensive care units to prevent occurrence of adverse events.