Urinary incontinence in primary health care 1. Perceived knowledge and training among various categories of nursing personnel and care units

Abstract

Objectives — To investigate perceived knowledge, skills and education of urinary

incontinence (UI), focusing on UI facts, product assessment, and quality of care.

Design -A quantitative-qualitative questionnarie study.

Setting — Three different care units; a health care centre, a nursing home, and a geriatric clinic in Sweden.

Subjects — 254 nurses, nursing assistants, and auxiliary nurses.

Main outcome measures — Responses to questionnaire.

Results — The study shows fragmentary knowledge about UI facts, aid products, and costs, and a lack of holistic view. The differences in knowledge between the groups were small but registered nurses generally showed better results, probably due to their longer vocational training. The health care centre had the best total knowledge as regards facts about UI.

Conclusion — All categories of nursing personnel wanted more knowledge about UI care and aids, which indicates that improvements in quality of care could be achieved by increasing product awareness.

Key Words:

• urinary incontinence
• knowledge
• education and aids