Knowledge of Nurses Regarding Glasgow Coma Scale in Tertiary Care Hospitals in Karachi

Abstract

Background: Assessment of the neurological state is very important for early detection of patient’s warning score.  In emergency department GCS also influences medical intervention provided by health professionals. The Glasgow coma scale has been established decades ago and it is globally accepted for assessment of conscious level.

Objectives:To assess the knowledge of the Glasgow coma scale among nurses working in tertiary care hospitals, Karachi.

Methods: A cross-sectional analytical study was carried out among 193 nurses from public sector hospitals of Karachi, who had at least one year of nursing experience. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire by non-probability purposive sampling technique. To assess knowledge about GCS the structured questionnaire was used. Pearson Chi-square test was used to identify association between knowledge of GCS and nursing demographic characteristics. P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: This studyshows that 41.5% of study participants had adequate knowledge about GCS. Only 38.3% had good knowledge about functions, indicators and monitoring skills of GCS. The study cleared that there were 20.2% nurses having poor GCS knowledge. Female nurses had slightly higher GCS good knowledge as compared to male knowledge. There was no association of knowledge level with nurses who did graduation and diploma. Chi-square test confirmed that there was only variable hospital that showed significant association with GCS knowledge (p-value 0.008 <0.05).

Conclusion: It is concluded that among levels of GCS knowledge the most prominent level was found to be adequate knowledge followed by good and poor knowledge.  In comparison to gender, female nurses had up to some extent higher good knowledge for GCS. The graduate nurse had higher adequate and good level of knowledge about GCS.