Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings

Abstract Background The management process of Enteral Nutrition (EN) typically involves the interaction between a team of health care practitioners. Nurses being the closest to the patients, have crucial responsibilities and play a major role in feeding delivery along with other medical treatments....

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Main Authors: Sara Zaher, Futoon AL. Sumairi, Sarah M. Ajabnoor
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2024-01-01
Series:BMC Nursing
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-01715-4
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author Sara Zaher
Futoon AL. Sumairi
Sarah M. Ajabnoor
author_facet Sara Zaher
Futoon AL. Sumairi
Sarah M. Ajabnoor
author_sort Sara Zaher
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Background The management process of Enteral Nutrition (EN) typically involves the interaction between a team of health care practitioners. Nurses being the closest to the patients, have crucial responsibilities and play a major role in feeding delivery along with other medical treatments. This study was conducted to investigate the perception of the nurses working in adult and paediatric intensive care Units (ICUs) regarding the EN barriers and identify the factors that influenced their perception. Methods The data in this cross-sectional study was collected via online survey between 15 October 2021 and January 2022. All nurses working in adult or paediatric ICUs across Saudi Arabia were eligible to participate. The tool used for the data collection was adapted from Cahill et al. (2016) and then reviewed and modified by the researchers. The survey collected information about the demographics of the nurses, and it included 24 potential EN barriers where the participants were asked to rate their importance on a scale from 1 to 5. Descriptive statistics were performed to describe the variables, univariant analysis were performed to compare the perceptions of the nurses regarding the EN barriers based on their characteristics followed by stepwise linear regression analysis. Results A total of 136 nurses working in adult and paediatric ICUs were included in this study. The results showed that the most important barriers as perceived by the nurses was “Frequent displacement of feeding tube, requiring reinsertion” [3.29 ± 1.28], “Delays in initiating motility agents in patients not tolerating enteral nutrition” [3.27 ± 1.24] and “Enteral formula not available on the unit”. [3.27 ± 1.24]. Our results showed that the responses of the participants statistically varied based on their work settings, gender, region, and educational level for some items in the survey (P-value ≤ 0.05). In the regression analysis, gender was the only variable statistically influenced the total Likert rating scores of the participants (r = -0.213, p-value = 0.013). Conclusion This study identified several barriers that exist in the nursing practice of EN in critical care settings. There are distinct differences in the perception of the nurses to these barriers based on their characteristics. Understanding such differences is important for implementing future strategies for units that needed the most help in prioritizing EN delivery.
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spelling doaj.art-234fdd55d51549d3b623934a51af62502024-01-21T12:16:03ZengBMCBMC Nursing1472-69552024-01-0123111110.1186/s12912-024-01715-4Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settingsSara Zaher0Futoon AL. Sumairi1Sarah M. Ajabnoor2Clinical Nutrition Department, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Taibah UniversityClinical Nutrition Department, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Taibah UniversityDepartment of Clinical Nutrition, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz UniversityAbstract Background The management process of Enteral Nutrition (EN) typically involves the interaction between a team of health care practitioners. Nurses being the closest to the patients, have crucial responsibilities and play a major role in feeding delivery along with other medical treatments. This study was conducted to investigate the perception of the nurses working in adult and paediatric intensive care Units (ICUs) regarding the EN barriers and identify the factors that influenced their perception. Methods The data in this cross-sectional study was collected via online survey between 15 October 2021 and January 2022. All nurses working in adult or paediatric ICUs across Saudi Arabia were eligible to participate. The tool used for the data collection was adapted from Cahill et al. (2016) and then reviewed and modified by the researchers. The survey collected information about the demographics of the nurses, and it included 24 potential EN barriers where the participants were asked to rate their importance on a scale from 1 to 5. Descriptive statistics were performed to describe the variables, univariant analysis were performed to compare the perceptions of the nurses regarding the EN barriers based on their characteristics followed by stepwise linear regression analysis. Results A total of 136 nurses working in adult and paediatric ICUs were included in this study. The results showed that the most important barriers as perceived by the nurses was “Frequent displacement of feeding tube, requiring reinsertion” [3.29 ± 1.28], “Delays in initiating motility agents in patients not tolerating enteral nutrition” [3.27 ± 1.24] and “Enteral formula not available on the unit”. [3.27 ± 1.24]. Our results showed that the responses of the participants statistically varied based on their work settings, gender, region, and educational level for some items in the survey (P-value ≤ 0.05). In the regression analysis, gender was the only variable statistically influenced the total Likert rating scores of the participants (r = -0.213, p-value = 0.013). Conclusion This study identified several barriers that exist in the nursing practice of EN in critical care settings. There are distinct differences in the perception of the nurses to these barriers based on their characteristics. Understanding such differences is important for implementing future strategies for units that needed the most help in prioritizing EN delivery.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-01715-4Enteral nutritionEN barriersPICUICUNurses
spellingShingle Sara Zaher
Futoon AL. Sumairi
Sarah M. Ajabnoor
Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings
BMC Nursing
Enteral nutrition
EN barriers
PICU
ICU
Nurses
title Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings
title_full Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings
title_fullStr Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings
title_full_unstemmed Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings
title_short Understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings
title_sort understanding nursing perspective towards barriers to the optimal delivery of enteral nutrition in intensive care settings
topic Enteral nutrition
EN barriers
PICU
ICU
Nurses
url https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-01715-4
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