Authors : Victor O. Adika, Nneoma Nzewi and Franco A. Apiyanteide
Abstract: Stroke is the third major cause of death behind cancer and heart diseases and leads to increased health burden of sensory and functional disabilities in many survivors across all parts of the world. It is a recognized fact that early rehabilitation is fundamental to the management of patients with stroke. This study is thus aimed at assessing knowledge and opinion of nurses on stroke patients’ rehabilitation as well as rehabilitation outcome in Bayelsa state, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was employed to determine the knowledge and opinion of nurses on stroke patients’rehabilitation as well as outcome with stroke patients in the state university teaching hospital. One hundred nurses who gave their consent participated in the study. The nurses respondents were made up of females 66 and 72% of them registered nurses having some form of knowledge on stroke rehabilitation. Results reveal that 75% believed that nurses have a role to play in stroke rehabilitation and 78% of the nurses also acknowledged to a great extent that rehabilitation is a key component of nursing management of stroke patients. The result further reveals that 80% of nurses do not measure or assess outcome after stroke event before discharge from the hospital. However, 98% were familiar with the use of Glasgow Coma scale and not the Barthel index scale 1%. The study also recorded that educational status was significant for knowledge of stroke rehabilitation (χ2 = 33.035, p = 0.01) and not significant for opinion (χ2 = 19.457, p = 0.25). However, there was significant difference between knowledge and opinion on practices by nurses (χ2 = 87.889, p = 0.00) at p<0.05 for significance. Based on the findings, it could be concluded that majority of nurses showed positive opinion that adequate rehabilitation leads to better outcome although, more training on this issue should be intensified to reduce the incidence of disability and morbidity associated with stroke.
Victor O. Adika, Nneoma Nzewi and Franco A. Apiyanteide, 2011. Knowledge and Opinion on Stroke Rehabilitation and Outcome among Stroke Patients in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. International Journal of Tropical Medicine, 6: 90-96.