Knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses about patient physical examination in hospitals affiliated to Tehran social security 2006

The first & also most important step in nursing process is assessment. ANA mention nursing is diagnosis and treatment of human responses to potential & actual health problems. Physical examination is focused on basic data related to interests, concerns and health to detect nursing care needs. So this study was carried out to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses about patient physicalexamination in hospitals affiliated to Tehran social security 2006. In this descriptive analytic study, 96 BS nurse working in medical – surgical and emergency wards in selected hospital affiliated to Tehran social security were evaluated. Data was collected by questionnaire in three sections. First included demographic questions, second and third related to knowledge, & attitude questions. An observational checklist is used for assessing the practice. Data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. Results showed 32.08±7.15, most of them were female and 53% had 73-96 month work experience. 58.4% had good knowledge and 57.3% had good attitude. In this case nobody had good practice. But 52.1% had weak practice. There was significant relation between knowledge level with attitude and attitude with practice. According to results, weak practice needs planning, for example increasing course in BS and MS and continues educating for nurses in this field.