Awareness and practice patterns of intensive care unit nurses towards eye care in a tertiary health care centre in Kolar

Abstract

Introduction: Patients admitted to the ICU are susceptible to ocular pathologies like chemosis, exposure keratopathy, lagophthalmos, etc. The ICU staff may over look eye care procedures due to their busy schedule in treating life threatening conditions. Thus a standard eye care protocol will help streamlining eye care in ICUs. Methodology: A group of 75 ICU nurses were given a semi structured questionnaire to assess their knowledge and practice patterns in eye care, in a tertiary health care center in Kolar, and the results were analyzed. Results: This study had 61.2% were females and 38.8% were males. Age, gender, experience in ICU, educational qualification and type of ICU showed no statistically significant association with awareness of the ICU staff. Age, gender, experience in ICU showed no significant association with of the ICU staff.42.8% of the participants who had a diploma certificate had adequate practice patterns or more than those with a degree. This was found to be statistically significant (p