A Study to assess the Knowledge and Practices regarding Prevention and Management of Local Complications of Peripheral Intravenous Therapy among staff nurses working in the Dr. D.Y. Patil Hospital, Pimpri, Pune
Authors: Patidar Pradeep 
Published: March 2022

Background: A descriptive study was conducted to assess the knowledge and practices regarding prevention and management of selected local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy such as phlebitis, thrombophlebitis, infiltration and extravasations among nurses working in various departments of Dr.D.Y. Patil hospital, Pune. Objectives: 1. To assess the knowledge regarding prevention and management of local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy. 2. To observe the practices regarding prevention and management of local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy.3.To correlate the knowledge with practices regarding prevention and management of local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy.4.To associate the knowledge and practices of nurses with selected demographic variables. Material and Methods: A Descriptive exploratory method was used to assess the knowledge and practices of nurses. Purposive Sampling Method was used for selecting 100 nurses who were working in Intensive Care Units, department of medicine and department surgery of Dr. D.Y. Patil hospital Pimpri Pune. The questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and structured checklist was used to assess the practices of nurses. Result: The present study found that 2% of staff nurses had excellent knowledge (Score 16-20), 23% of them had good knowledge (Score 11-15), 64% of the staff nurses had average knowledge (Score 6-10) and 11% of them had poor knowledge (Score 0-5) regarding prevention and management of local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy. In practice level majority of staff nurses 86% of them had average practices (score 7-12), 11% of the staff nurses had good practices (score 13-18) and 3% of them had poor practices (score 0-6) regarding prevention and management of local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy. 34% of them wash hands before cannulation. Only 5% of them wear sterile gloves during cannulation procedure. Only 7% of them follow the appropriate (INS) guidelines of cannula insertion. Only 7% of them use aseptic technique while insertion of cannula. 9% of them checked and changed Intracath dressing if soiled. Only 1% of them teach patient regarding identification and informing early signs of complications. Only 5% of them remove the iv cannula after 72 hours irrespective of any complication. 16% of them flush Intracath after & before IV Injections. Only 3% of them assess for complication every 6 hourly using visual grading scale. 15% of them applied warm moist compress to the affected site in case of phlebitis. 20% of them applied sterile dressing to the affected site after careful inspection in case of infiltration. Only 17% of them applied cold compress followed by warm compress in case of Thrombophlebitis. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was found to be 0.7 which indicates that there is positive correlation between knowledge and practices of staff nurses. More the knowledge of the staff nurses, better are their practices. In association of knowledge with selected demographic variables, since p-values corresponding to ‘Professional qualification of nurses’ and ‘Have you done any specific course related to intravenous therapy’ were small (less than 0.05).which indicate these variables were found to have significant association with knowledge of staff nurses regarding prevention and management of local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy. In association of practice with selected demographic variables, none of the demographic variable was found to have significant association with practices of the staff nurses regarding prevention and management of local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy. Conclusion: The study will be helpful for nurses to identify their learning needs and improvement in practices to prevent and manage local complications of peripheral intravenous therapy.