Factors Determining Nursing Management of Burn at University Teaching Hospital of Butare (CHUB), Rwanda

Purpose: Worldwide, burn injury is a problem causing intense pain. Long-term morbidity is often a significant problem for burn survivors that create suffering for the individual as well as for family and community. Poor management of burn injury can results into many complications such as disability (amputations and disfigurement), infections, and prolonged hospital stays as well as death. Objective of this study was to assess factors determining nursing management of burn at CHUB. Materials and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional design and sampling technique were taken into consideration with a sample size of 84 nurses. Data were collected through a questionnaire. A consent statement was provided to participants of this research. The researcher provided information concerning the situation at a given time. Data collected were analyzed using the Excel Frequencies and percentages were computed. Findings: The current study indicates that the most factors determining nursing management of burn are lack of burn unit (50%, n=42), followed by nurse workload (25%, n= 21), no training received (23.8%, n=20), lower level of education (25%, n=21). Concerning the reasons why training on burn management was not offered at CHUB, the study indicated that 50.0% of respondents revealed the lack of fund; 29.8% of respondents revealed the lack of trainers; 15.5% of respondents mentioned the lack of time; while 4.8% of respondents indicated the lack of training place. The study also revealed that 76.1% of respondents revealed that the reasons why the burn unit was not available at CHUB was due to the lack of place for it; 13.1% of respondents revealed that this is due to the lack of nurses working there; 6.0% of respondents indicated that it was due to the lack of sterile towels; while 4.8% of respondents revealed that it was due to the lack of anaesthetist working in that place. Throughout the study finding, there were many weak factors in nursing managements of burn at CHUB. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: different stakeholders will know what could be done to strength factors determining nursing management of burn and inform policies makers to address availability of burn unit and providing training to the nurses’ staffs about burn management in hospitals.