External Ventricular Brain Drain: Effect of Nursing Guidelines on Internship Nursing Students' Performance

Background: External Ventricular Drain (EVD) care is considered an advanced
specialized nursing skill for the neurological patient. Internship nursing students are more
exposed to the (EVD) during clinical experience so they need to improve their performance
related to (EVD) to ensure patients' safety and eliminate errors through safe performance. Aim:
this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of external ventricular brain drain guidelines
on internship nursing students' performance. Study design: a quasi-experimental study;
Subject & setting: A convenient subject of forty internship nursing students at neurological
intensive care units affiliated to Ain Shams University Hospitals. Tools: (1) External
Ventricular Brain Drain self-administered questionnaire, (2) Nurses' practice and attitude
observational checklist pre & post guideline implementation. Results: there were significant
improvement in the level of performance of internship nursing students post guideline
implementation (P  0.05). Conclusion: nursing guidelines had statistically significant
positive effect on internship nursing students' performance regarding external ventricular brain
drain evidenced by most of the studied sample had satisfactory knowledge, practice and
attitude. Recommendation: The periodic refreshing in-service training courses should be
provided to internship nursing students in order to keep them of updating knowledge and
practice regarding external ventricular brain drain.