The evaluati̇on of nurse's attitudes and practices towards physical examination

Regarded as an essential skill for nurses, physical examination (PE) is considered a valuable tool in deciding on timely and correct approaches to the clinical course of the patient/healthy individual, determining the areas where nursing care is needed, and achieving desired results in patient care. The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitudes and practices of nurses towards PE. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with a total of 488 nurses working in the medical and surgical clinics, intensive care units and emergency departments of Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University Health and Practice Research Center, and Afyonkarahisar Public Hospital between 05.11.2020-15.04.2021. The study data were collected with the Nurse Information Form and the Physical Examination Attitude and Practice Scale in Nursing. Statistical analysis of study data was performed using the SPSS version 22.0 program with the descriptive statistics and independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance, and Pearson correlation analysis. The mean age of the nurses was found to be 28.51± 6.30 years, 77.3% were female, and 63.5% were undergraduates. While 88.1% of the nurses were found not to receive any training on PE, 62.7% of them had either partial or no knowledge about PE methods. The majority of nurses (87.1%) were determined to consider PE as a part of their nursing practice and found PE necessary to be performed (91.6%), while only 25.8% of them were found to use PE in patient care. Factors such as "lack of time" (22.7%) and "lack of knowledge and skills about PE" (20.7%) were among the factors that were effective in nurses' PE practices. The total mean score of the participants from the Physical Examination Attitude and Practice Scale in Nursing was found as 45.89±10.32. When the scale mean scores of the nurses were examined according to their individual and occupational characteristics, the nurses who were female, had undergraduate and graduate levels of education, consider their knowledge of PE sufficient, reported knowing PE methods, performed PE and considered PE as a part of their nursing practices were found to have a more positive attitude significantly (p<0.001). Furthermore, it was observed that nurses may likely have a more negative attitude as the number of patients they provide care for increases (p=0.004). There was no significant difference between the other professional characteristics of the participants and the mean scores of the scale (p>0.05). The results of this study revealed that nurses have a positive attitude towards the PE practices in the clinical setting, however, there is a need for improving knowledge and skills and institutional arrangements so that they can effectively use their skills related to PE. Keywords: Physical examination, Nurse, Attitude, Practice.