Abstract
Background: Numerous systemic diseases are usually related to dental conditions and therefore general health needs efforts of each medical and dental care providers. Oral health cannot be divided from the health and wellness of hospitalized individuals. As the patients in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) completely rely on the caregivers; the knowledge, attitude, and practices accompanied by the nurses impact the recovery regarding patients to the great extent. Objectives: Evaluate the Oral health care knowledge among female nurses in the pediatric intensive care units in Abha, Saudi Arabia.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on the sample size of 200 female nurses working at various government and private hospitals A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to the subjects after giving instructions.
Results: The result showed that nurse knowledge was considerably linked to the level of education. most of them agreed that getting proper oral care is necessary for the overall health and wellness of the patient. The most regular restriction to perform oral care was lack of education (29%) followed by lack of time with workload. There is no substantial connection between ICU nurses' experience and their knowledge, attitude, and practice towards oral treatment.
Conclusion: A positive knowledge and attitude among the surveyed nurses toward provision of oral care for pediatric patients in ICU. Very less proportion of nurses had oral care training during their basic nursing education. The most frequent barrier to perform oral care was lack of education, work overload, oral endotracheal tube of the patients. Most respondents would like to receive more education and training in the provision of oral care. Standardized oral hygiene practice gets the possible to contribute to enhanced oral health of children within the pediatric essential care setting.