Neonatal Nurses' Knowledge of Their Standards of Practice: A Reflection of Accountability

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the neonatal nurses'- knowledge of standards of nursing practice. It was post~lated the degree to which a nurse understands and accepts her professional . accou~ta.bility depend·s :upon her own understanding of her status~ The level of knowledge was obtained from the investigator's selfdesigned tool. Additionally, the study .examined··whether or not a ' . ' ' . difference existed between the knowledge of nu'rses who care for . . . infants who require varying degree~ of 'nursing care, as evidenced by the t:y-pe of hospital ·they are employed in· und~r :regionalization guide~ lines. It further examined the relationship be~ween ·the personal -· variable of type of basic nursing education with the t·otal and subscale scores on the tool. A descriptive--correlational design was ·used to examine the study data generated from· 61 registered nurses, distri~uted _among 15 hospitals in one Southeastern stat_e. Analysis of the study .data using descriptive stati.stics indicated that the neonatal nurses wereknowledgeable of their standards of practice. Pe~rson correlation coefficients revealed no significant difference exis~ed amongst the nurses in Level I,. II _and III neonatal care facilities, nor was there any correlation between the nurses' educational preparation and their level of knowledge of the standards of practice. Additionally~ Pearson correlation coefficients· and Cronhach' s alpha ·were. used to determine the statistic:al validity and r~liabi.li ty es-timates of the tool •..