Neonatal Nurses Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Kangaroo Care

El-Sayed Mohammed, Randa; Al Furaikh, Samia; Abellar, Jenelle; Abouelfettoh, Amel

doi:10.21608/ejhc.2023.318510

Neonatal Nurses Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Kangaroo Care

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ College of Nursing, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences

² King Abdulaziz Hospitals, Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs

³ College of Nursing, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences & Faculty of Nursing, Cairo University

10.21608/ejhc.2023.318510

Abstract

Background: Kangaroo care (KC) is a skin–to–skin touch between the newborn and the mother. Many researches documented that KC promotes newborn infants’ physiological, psychological, and behavioral development. Therefore, its implementation is recommended for all newborns. Nurses caring for newborns should be capable of implementing such interventions. Aim: evaluate the neonatal nurses’ knowledge, attitude, and practice toward KC. Method: descriptive cross-sectional correlational design used to evaluate the level of neonatal nurses working at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Labor and Delivery (LD) Unit at a tertiary hospital in the Eastern Region, KSA. Data were collected from 66 nurses using a questionnaire adapted from (El -Nagger et al., 2013). It includes three subscales one for KC Knowledge one for KC attitude and one for KC practices. Results: BSN degree was the minimum educational level of the majority of the nurses (93.9%). The majority of the nurse had good knowledge about KC (10.82 ± 1.94), and a positive attitude toward KC implementation (61.08 ± 6.45). Although nurses scored high in knowledge and attitude, they were low in practice level (11.18 ± 1.54). None of the nurses supported the practice of KC with ventilated and extremely low birth weight infants. A significant positive correlation was found between nurses ‘total score of knowledge and their total scores of attitudes (P=0.001). Conclusion: Nurses’ knowledge and attitude toward KC was relatively good. Recommendations: Providing knowledge, in-service training, and mentoring nurses' performance of KC.

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