Cross-Sectional Mediation Analysis: How Registered Nurses’ Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Influence Adherence to Pressure Injury Prevention

Background: Pressure injuries (PIs) remain a major and escalating global patient safety concern, affecting 12.8% of hospitalized patients worldwide and contributing to rising prevalence and mortality rates from 5.63 to 8.18 and 0.31 to 0.47 per 100,000 population, respectively. The economic burden of PIs is substantial, amounting to $26.8 billion annually in the United States and $9608 per patient in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). However, adherence toward pressure injury prevention (PIP) guidelines among registered nurses (RNs) remains critically inconsistent. Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine whether attitude and practice function as parallel mediators in the relationship between knowledge and adherence to PIP guidelines among RNs, adjusting for age and years of experience. This aim was addressed through three-fold objectives: to assess RNs’ knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP) and adherence to PIP guidelines, evaluate the direct knowledge–adherence relationship, and quantify the two mediated pathways. Methods: A cross-sectional mediation study recruited 166 RNs from 52 clinical units at Prince Sultan Military Medical City in Riyadh, KSA, using convenience sampling with data collected from 5 to 15 March 2026. Validated instruments assessed KAP and adherence to PIP guidelines. Pearson correlations, multiple linear regression, and parallel mediation (Hayes PROCESS macro, model 4; 5000 bootstrap resamples) were performed with age and years of experience as covariates. Results: Mean scores indicated low knowledge (7.31/25; 29.2%), negative attitude (28.20/52; 54.2%), poor practice (36.10/110; 32.8%), and low adherence (28.40/90; 31.6%). Regression explained 36.8% of the variance in adherence to PIP guidelines (Adjusted R2 = 0.35), with knowledge (β = 0.22; p < 0.003), attitude (β = 0.30; p < 0.001), practice (β = 0.20; p = 0.006), and years of experience (β = 0.12; p = 0.04) emerging as significant predictors. Both attitude (unstandardized indirect effect = 0.40; 95% Boot CI [0.20, 0.64]) and practice (indirect effect = 0.30; [0.10, 0.60]) significantly mediated the knowledge–adherence relationship, while knowledge retained a significant direct effect (B = 0.70, p = 0.003), indicating partial mediation. Conclusions: This study was the first to employ a parallel mediation analysis to examine KAP as concurrent predictors of adherence toward PIP guidelines within a tertiary military healthcare setting in the KSA. The mediating roles of attitude and practice, together with the direct effect of knowledge, indicated that adherence to PIP guidelines is shaped by interconnected cognitive and behavioral mechanisms. Persistently low KAP levels and low adherence, along with the predictive influence of all KAP domains and RNs’ years of experience, underscored the urgent need for integrated interventions that strengthen KAP to improve adherence and prevent PIs.