Knowledge and practices of nurses working in pediatric surgery on PRE-surgery food/liquid restriction

The research was conducted as a descriptive study to determine the knowledge and practices of nurses working in pediatric surgery services regarding preoperative food and liquid restriction. The sample of the study consisted of 214 nurses working in pediatric surgery units in Public and Private hospitals on the European side of Istanbul between January and August 2021. In the collection of data, "Sociodemographic characteristics information form" consisting of 9 questions and "Inquiry form to determine the knowledge and practices of pediatric surgery nurses about preoperative food-liquid restriction", which was prepared by the researchers by compiling the literature and containing 21 questions, was used. Frequency, percentage and Chi-square analysis were used to evaluate the data. Within the scope of the research, 45.3% of the nurses stated that the pediatric patients fasted for 8 hours and 27.6% for 10 hours or more before going to the operation. 94.8% of the nurses stated that the nurses gave information about the liquid-nutrient restriction to the relatives of the patients in the unit they worked and all of those who stated that the current liquid-nutrient restriction recommendations were not followed due to disagreements between the teams. 24.8% of the nurses stated that it is right for children to starve after midnight, 44.9% stated that they started strict food restrictions after midnight and 66.4% stated that they started breast milk restriction 4 hours before. It was determined that no nurse complied with the current water and clear liquid restriction period. Only 13.6% of the nurses gave correct answers to all the statements about liquid-solid food and breast milk restriction periods. In line with these results, it is seen that the current guidelines on preoperative food/liquid restriction times are not followed. Key Words: Nursing, Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Preoperative Preparation, Hunger, Liquid-Food Restriction, Breast milk