Information about neonatal nurses' oxygen theraphy and applications

Oxygen applications are important in the treatment of breathing problems in newborns. Particularly at high doses and uncontrolled use of the oxygen concentration in preterm infants causes diseases such as newborn Retinopathy (ROP), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). This research was performed to determine the theoretical and practical information about oxygen therapy that has negative effects if not applied in appropriate circumstances especially on prematurity by neonatal nurses, especially in order in a descriptive way. The population of the investigation has been created by 60 nurses employed in neonatal service in four branches of a private university in provinces borde of İstanbul and also the sample of study was created by all population but only 47 of them were voluntary. Data were is First part of the questionnaire formed nurses' identifying characteristics, second part was prepared by utilizing the literature and was finalized on expert opinion (A "Theoretical and Practical Information of Oxygen Therapy" questionnaire. Compliance with the normal distribution of data tested with single sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and non-parametric tests were used in advanced analysis because of significant value is smaller than 0.05. The Mann-Whitney U test from non-parametric tests for two independent variables, Kruskal-Wallis for more than two independent variables, and Spearman's correlation coefficient for correlation analysis was used. Nurses' responses to the questionnaire information "Theoretical and Practical Information Oxygen" mean scores was found 24.09 ± 5.429 over 40. The highest point was taken in "Pure Information on Oxygen Therapy" subscale as 8.53 ± 2.544, the lowest point was seen at "Neonate Oxygen Practices" subscale as 2.09 ± 1.080. The best known question was " Oxygen equipment used in neonate should be under aseptic conditions" with % 74.5 (n = 35) and the least known question was "newborn arterial blood gas and pulse oximetry measurements and the damage degree of oxygen " with 42.6% (n = 20). "Toxicity of Oxygen" subscale information scores ranged from 1 to 6, the average was 3.57 ± 1.298. In the absence of any knowledge level of nurses about oxygen toxicity issues should cause the diseases such as ROP and BPD, required trainings (hospital-service programs) should be implemented. Key Words: Oxygen therapyh, nurses' care, retinopathy