IMPLEMENTATION OF NURSING ROUNDS AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG NURSES WORKING AT PUBLIC HOSPITALS IN HARAR TOWN, EASTERN ETHIOPIA: A MIXED METHODS STUDY

Abstract

Background: A nursing round is a scheduled patient visit by two or more nurses to assess patients' needs, comfort, and safety in addition to providing routine care. It is one of the approaches to improve the quality of nursing care. However, there has been little emphasis and lack of information on its implementation status in Ethiopia. Objective: This study aimed to assess the implementation of nursing rounds and associated factors among nurses working at public hospitals in Harar Town, Eastern Ethiopia from July 1 to July 15/2023. Methods: A mixed-method study design which includes both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted. The study was conducted from July 1 to 15, 2023 among randomly selected 205 nurses working at public hospitals in Harar Town. Data was collected using face-to-face interviews the collected data was cleaned, coded, and entered into Epi-Data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 24 for analysis. Both bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify associated factors using an adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval. The significance level was declared at P value ≤ 0.05. The qualitative data were coded using ATLAS.ti7 and thematic analysis was employed. Results: About 53.7 % (95%CI: 46.6%- 60.6%) of nurses did not implement nursing rounds. Poor knowledge of nursing round [AOR 0.43, CI (0.22-0.84)], unfavourable attitude [AOR: 0.45, CI: (0.24-0.76)], and inadequate resource [AOR 0.47, CI: (0.26-0.88-3.41)] were significantly associated with the implementation of the nursing round. The qualitative study also identified shallow-grounded and inconsistent nursing round implementation in the study setting, where lack of passion among nurses and poor coordination of tasks were barriers to effective implementation of the nursing round. Conclusion: More than half of the study participants did not implement nursing rounds. Poor knowledge, unfavourable attitude, and inadequate resources were factors associated with the implementation of nursing rounds. Hence, providing training to enhance knowledge which will improve their attitude can be vital to strengthen its implementation.