The relationship between intensive care nurses' attitudes towards evidence-based nursing and ventilator-associated pneumonia prevention information

This research was carried out as a descriptive study in order to evaluate the relationship between critical care nurses' attitudes towards evidence based nursing and their knowledge on evidence-based practices for the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia. The focus group consisted of 130 nurses who were working in all intensive care units of a public hospital between November 2018 and February 2019. The sample selection method was not used in the research. Using the improbable sampling method, 121 nurses who voluntarily accepted to participate in the study formed the sample. The data of the research were collected by using the "Nurse Identification Form", "Questionnaire for the Prevention of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia" and "Attitude Towards Evidence-Based Nursing Questionnaire". In order to conduct the research, ethics committee approval and institution permits were obtained. Number, percentage, standard deviation, median, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis and Pearson Correlation analysis were utilized to evaluate the data. Estimated effect of "Attitude Towards Evidence-Based Nursing Questionnaire" to the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia was evaluated by logistic regression analysis. For all results, p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. The mean score of the nurses participating in the study for prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia was found 4.09±2.04, which is considered low. In the study, a statistically significant difference was found between the nurses' education/knowledge acquisition status about the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia and the information score about ventilator-associated pneumonia prevention (p<0.005). The mean score of the nurses from "Attitude Towards Evidence-Based Nursing Questionnaire" was 63.56±7.27, which is considered highly positive. When the sub-dimensions of the "Attitude Towards Evidence-Based Nursing Questionnaire" were examined, the mean scores of belief sub-dimension (30.18±3.47), practice intention sub-dimension (16.05±2.33) and emotions sub-dimension (17.32±2.61) were determined to be positive. A positive and low level correlation was found between the nurses' knowledge score on prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia and the total score of the "Attitude towards Evidence-Based Nursing Questionnaire" (r = 0.225). It was found that the nurses' attitudes score towards evidence-based nursing affect the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia knowledge score by %5.2 and the positive attitudes towards evidence-based nursing increased the knowledge of the ventilator-associated pneumonia 1.058 times (β = 1.058). Keywords;Prevention of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia; Evidence-Based Practice; Evidence Based Nursing; Evidence-Based Guidelines