Abstract

KNOWLEDGE OF NURSES TOWARD DRUGS ADMINISTRATION VIA A NASOGASTRIC TUBE

Aisha Ahmed and *Tarig Osman

ABSTRACT

Background: Medications administration via NGT is the nursing responsibility; it’s crucial to establish what nurses do when giving enteral medication to promote Patient safety. Objectives: This study was carried out to assess the knowledge of nurses toward drugs administration via a nasogastric tube in selected Khartoum hospitals. Methodology: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study in A 203 of registered nurses. The study was completed in 8 governmental hospitals in Khartoum state –Sudan it was conducted from October 2018 to March 2019. Data were collected using questionnaire and analysed by employing Chi-square (p-value less than 0.05) and correlate test by using SPSS program version 23. Result: In this study we found out that about 65.60% of the total study population had a fair knowledge about drug-nutrient interactions and medications as general, about 45.90% manage to know the liquid dosage form is the most suitable for administration by NGT. About 82.3% of nurses did not know which dosage form can be crushed which lead to obstruction of the tube, in administration technique 29.6% added the medications directly to the enteral formula, and only 10.8% flushed the tube before and after administration of medications. Conclusion: Nurse’s knowledge was limited regarding medications administration via NGT. Additionally, they made mistakes during administration of medications, preparation of medication, selection of dosage forms and medications interaction through NGT due to the ignorance of administration guidelines.

Keywords: Nurse’s knowledge was limited regarding medications administration via NGT.