Effect of Educational Guidelines on Nurses' Knowledge and Practices regarding Application of Nursing Process.

Background: Nursing process is cyclical, dynamic, interpersonal, collaborative and universally applicable process. Nurses use the nursing process to achieve the best outcomes and improve patient quality management. Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate effect of educational guidelines on nurses' knowledge and practices regarding application of nursing process. Study design: Quasi-experimental design was used to achieve the aim of the study. Setting: The study was conducted in Medical Departments at Benha university Hospital. Sample: Convenience sample of all available nurses (n=80) who working in mentioned setting. Tools of data collection: Two tools were used, Tool I: Self-administered Questionnaire and tool II: Observational checklist for nurses' practices. Results: 65.0% of the studied nurses aged between 20 <30 years old and 65.0% of nurses didn’t attend any training courses. There were 36.3% &16.2% of the studied nurses had satisfactory level of knowledge and practices regarding application of nursing process pre educational guidelines. which improved to 75 % &55% post guidelines implementation, respectively. There was a highly statistically significant positive correlation between total nurses’ knowledge and their total practices of nursing process pre and post guidelines implementation. Conclusion: Implementation of educational guidelines had statistically significant improvement on nurses’ knowledge and practices regarding implementation of nursing process. Recommendations: provision of continuing education programs and training workshops regularly and periodically which must be obligatory for all nurses in order to update nurses' knowledge and enhance their practice level regarding application of nursing process.