Determination of knowledge and attitudes about pediatric delirium of nurses giving care pediatric patients in intensive care units

This study is carried out as descriptively with 80 nurses to determine the knowledge and attitudes about pediatric delirium of nurses who care pediatric patients in intensive care units. The data are obtained by the Descriptive Information of Nurses Form and the Knowledge Levels and Attitudes about Pediatric Delirium of Nurses Form. In the analysis of the data obtained, SPSS for Windows Ver. 17.0 program is used. Nurses are average 25.64±3.31 years old and have been working with pediatric patients in the intensive care unit for 4.23±3.64 years. Their knowledge of pediatric delirium is a medium level (36.65 / 60), and they obtain information about pediatric delirium from the internet and professional books. It has been defined that nurses use the Glasgow Coma Scale as a pediatric delirium assessment tool, don't evaluate delirium routinely, their attitudes towards delirium are limited with environmental regulations providing orientation of children. It has been determined that there is a significant relationship between the clinics where nurses work and their education level about their knowledge and attitude mean scores. The knowledge and attitude score averages of nurses who working in General Intensive Care Unit are higher significantly than the knowledge and attitude score averages of the nurses who working in Cardiovascular Surgery and Coronary Intensive Care Units (p<0.05). It was determined that while the nurses' get training about pediatric delirium during occupational retraining and working year dont't affect their knowledge and point averages; when the education level is rises, level of knowledge and attitudes score about pediatric delirium increase positively.Nurses need reliable information about pediatric delirium risk factors, signs and symptoms, assessment methods and tools, and deliium prevention. It is recommended that organizing training programs to detect delirium in early period and provide appropriate treatment and management of intensive care nurses, establishing evidence-based care guides to support routine evaluation. Keywords: Delirium, intensive care unit, nursing, pediatric