Research into Clinical Nurses' Knowledge, Importance and Perception of Diabetes Mellitus

임상 간호사의 당뇨병에 대한 지식, 중요도 및 인지도 조사

The purpose of this study is to determine the clinical nurses' knowledge of DM and diabetes patient education aptitude so as to provide a basis for clinical nurse training with respect to diabetes patient education program. The data has been collected through the questionnaires of 42 items from the Knowledge on DM and each 16 item from the Importance on the elements of diabetes patient and the Recognition for clinical nurses, respectfully. 166 nurses from a general hospital who had participated in clinical nurse training in Sep. 28 and Oct. 4, 2001 were subject to respond the questionnaires. Analysis has been done by using statistical method such as percentage, average, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, Duncan test and Pearson correlation coefficients. The findings are as follows: 1. Clinical nurses' knowledge levels of diabetes 1) The average level of nurses' knowledge about diabetes is 29.37 (right answer- finding rate: 70%), which is intermediate. 2) Amongst the nurses classified by their knowledge levels about diabetes, the group with less than one year career and that with more than 5 year careers are found to have higher knowledge levels. The item with the highest right answer-finding rate was 'Please find the wrong out of the following examples about foot care'. Meanwhile, the item with highest incorrect answer-finding rate was 'what does blood sugar control aims for amongst gestational diabetes?'. 2. Clinical nurses' importance and perception levels of educational training about diabetes 1) There were no differences amongst nurses' importance level about diabetes. 2) Nurses usually had high scores(4.30) in terms of the items related to the importances about educational training. 3) There were quite high recognitions of general characteristics and symptoms about diabetes, amongst the nurse cohorts working more than one year and less than 5 years, and over 5 years, the group belonging to the internal department, that having the previous experiences of dealing with diabetes, and that having their diabetic relatives and other close people. Meanwhile, strangely, the group who identified themselves as 'not good at treating diabetes' had a high recognition level of educational training about diabetes. 3. Relationship between knowledge levels and importance & perception levels of diabetes 1) The higher knowledge about diabetes nurses had, the more importance they recognized. 2) It is found that there was no relationship between knowledge and perception of diabetes. 3) The more importance about diabetes nurses had, the higher perception they obtained. In conclusion, there is an urgent need for systematic educational programs about diabetes including technical aspects, in order to upgrade and improve nurses knowledge levels. In addition, re-educational training should be provided at regular intervals. Further, we believe the nurses with high knowledge about diabetes and interests in the provision of educations for patients can be far more confident, and in return, patients can have better self-management about diabetes obtained through educations. Based on the above-mentioned findings, we would like to make the suggestion: re-evaluation about nurses' knowledge and cognition levels should be carried out after job training programs about diabetes.