Challenges Encountered by Nursing Officers in Providing Oral Care for Patients at National Hospital Kandy.

Abstract

Background: Oral health is an integral part of the overall health and well-being. Nurses, as primary members of the healthcare team, are positioned to play a significant role in providing oral care. However, there are significant challenges that prevent nurses to effectively delivering the oral healthcare. Objective: To identify the possible challenges in providing effective oral healthcare by the nurses at National Hospital Kandy Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study conducted at the National Hospital Kandy among 228 nurses who work in medical, surgical and intensive care units. A self administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants. Data were analyzed with SPSS 26.0 version. Results: This study identified 77.6% (n=156) of nurses faced significant challenges in delivering oral care. Patient-related factors and hospital-administration related factors were the main challenges encountered by nurses. As patient related factors, patients' behaviors and physical limitations (62.18%) were identified. As hospital-administration related factors inadequate access to necessary instruments and materials (48.08%) was a key concern. Additionally, knowledge gaps (37.82%), workload (35.90%), a lack of standardized guidelines (33.33%), insufficient staff (28.21%), limited hospital-provided facilities (26.92%), time constraints (22.44%), perception of expensive oral care equipment (14.74%), lower prioritization of oral care practices (12.82%), and poor supervision (12.18%) mentioned as prominent challenges. Conclusions: The nurses face patient related, healthcare professional related, and hospital administration related challenges, which restricted them from performing standard as well as effective oral care. Therefore, it is recommended to provide in-service training, awareness programs, standardized protocols, provision of oral care instruments and materials to integrate oral healthcare into routine patient care.