Abstract:

Objective: To investigate the cognition of respiratory and critical care nurses on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) related fatigue in the tertiary hospitals, and to provide reference for promoting the fatigue management of COPD patients. Methods: Using the convenience sampling method, from July to September, 2021, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 673 respiratory and critical care nurses in four tertiary hospitals in He’nan Province based on a self-designed questionnaire. Of the 582 collected questionnairese, 568 were valid, with the effective recovery rate of 84.4%. The survey included the cognition of respiratory and critical care nurses on COPD related fatigue, the current situation of clinical intervention and suggestions on training methods of related knowledge. Results: The score of the 568 respondents on the cognition of fatigue-related knowledge of COPD patients was 38.65±4.54, including 14.83±4.22 on the understanding dimension and 23.83±1.30 on the influence dimension of fatigue. Of total investigated nurses, 65.3% (371/568) had never (or occasionally) paid attention to the fatigue of COPD patients, only 7.6% (43/568) paid attention to the fatigue regularly, and 92.1% (523/568) had never (or occasionally) taken intervention measures for the fatigue. As to the choice of training methods for fatigue-related knowledge of COPD patients, most of the nurses choose operation demonstration (351, 61.8%) and case analysis (316, 55.6%), while few of them choose concentrated lectures (193, 34.0%) and self-study (114, 20.1%). Conclusion: Respiratory and critical care nurses in the tertiary hospitals have a high degree of understanding about the influence dimension of COPD relative fatigue, but they have poor basic knowledge. The hospital should carry out systematic training on COPD related fatigue, and timely update the concept and nursing measures.

Key words: Pulmonary disease, chronic obstructive, Fatigue, Cognition, Cross-sectional studies