Knowledge, practices, and influencing factors of tracheostomy care among nurses in Northwest Amhara Hospitals, Ethiopia (2024)

Care of Patient with tracheostomy is a true emergency and an essential aspect of effective airway management. Nurses knowledge and practice about the function and limitations of endotracheal and tracheostomy care is very important, in order to provide high quality care. An institutional-based cross-sectional study assessed nurses’ knowledge, practice, and associated factors toward tracheostomy care among 281 nurses from December–February 2024 at five Comprehensive Specialized Hospitals. A census sampling technique was used to recruit participants for the study. A structured self-administered questionnaire adapted from a paper on a similar study was used. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to test the internal consistency of items. The descriptive statistics were presented in text and tables. Analytical analysis schemes including bivariable and multivariable logistic regression were computed considering P-value < 0.05 to identify statistically significant factors. A total of 281, with a response rate of 98.25% of study participants were involved in this study. Among respondents 142 (50.5%) were males. Most of the respondents (73.3%) had a bachelor’s degree, and 113 (40.2%) of the respondents had 11–15 years of work experience. In this study, 143 (50.9%) with 95% CI: (43.23, 54.99) of the participants had good knowledge. and nurses’ good knowledge of tracheostomy care had significantly associated with nurses having a master, ≥ 15 years of working experience, and nurses working at the surgical ICU. In this study nurses’ level of practice on tracheostomy care was good (49.8%) with a 95% CI: (43.94–55.70) and the variable sex, age, work experience, working unit, and knowledge of the participant about tracheostomy care are factors that had a significant effect on nurses’ practice. The study determined that nurses’ knowledge and practices related to tracheostomy care were insufficient. A significant positive association was identified between knowledge and factors such as holding a master’s degree, having 15 or more years of experience, and working in surgical ICUs. Additionally, a strong positive association was observed between practice and factors including being female, years of nursing experience, working in ICUs, and possessing a solid understanding of tracheostomy care. A negative association was found with nurses on 41–50 age groups.