DISCUSSION

Out of 100 samples 51.0 % of nurses are from the age group of 21-30 years, 34.0% are in the age group of 41- 50 years, 8.0% are from the age group of 31-40 years, and 7.0% are from the above 50 years of age group. Based on sex majority (96.0%) are females and a few (4.0%) are males. On basis of professional qualification GNM course, occupy a major proportion of 51.0%, followed by B.Sc. nursing course, with 47.0%, and the least being multipurpose health worker training course with 2.0%. Based on designation 27.0% are head nurses, 25.0% are staff nurses, 25.0% are senior internee, and 23.0% are junior internee. On basis of years of work experience 38.0% belong to 1-5 years of work experience, 36.0% are above 20 years of work experience, 11.0% are from16-20 years, 9.0% belong to 11-15 years of work experience, and 6.0% are from 6-10 years of work experience. Current area of work experience, i.e. 35.0% belong to intensive care unit, 28.0% are from general ward, 24.0% work in post-operative unit, and 13.0% are from semi intensive care unit. Attending in-service education program 63.0% have not been participated in in-service education program on documentation, and 37.0% have been participated in in-service education program on documentation. The demand for completing patient documentation cause to extend or work beyond your scheduled work hours have been answered as sometimes by 62.0% nurses, 23.0% nurses as rarely, 11.0% as very often, 3.0% as never, and 1.0% as often. Factors that inhibit documentation of patient care, have presented that 76% stated increased workload and less staffing, 13% as lack of time, 8.0% with lack of support from supervisors and colleagues, and 3.0% with inadequate charting system. Nurses have felt that factors that facilitate documentation of patient care, was 46.0% for standard guideline for nursing documentation, 22.0% knowledge about documentation, 18.0% conducting

in service training, 12.0% enough time for documentation, and 2.0% electronic documentation. The first objective of the study was to assess the knowledge of nurses regarding documentation of patient care, in order to meet this objective self-instructed questionnaire was given to study the sample. The finding revealed that 64% nurses have average knowledge, 30% have above average score and 6% nurses showed below average levels of knowledge in documentation of patient care. The second objective of the study was to assess the practices of nurses regarding documentation of patient care, in order to meet this objective 61% nurses scored average for practice, 39% scored below average and none scored above average for practice levels in documentation of patient care. The third objective of the study was to find the association between knowledge of nurses with regard to documentation of patient care and selected variables. The results reveled that there was significant relationship between the knowledge of nurses and their age, sex, professional qualification, designation, total years of work experience, current area of work experience, attending in-service education program and factors that facilitate documentation of patient care. Whereas no significant relationship was found between the knowledge of nurses and demands for completing patient documentation extend or work beyond scheduled work hours and factors that inhibit documentation of patient care. The fourth objective of the study was to find the association between practice of nurses with regard to documentation of patient care and selected demographic variables. The results reveled that there was no significant relationship existing between the practices of nurses regarding documentation of patient care and age, sex, professional qualification, total years of work experience, attending in-service education program, demands

for completing patient documentation extend or work beyond scheduled work hours, factors that inhibit documentation of patient care and factors that facilitate documentation of patient care. Whereas only Current area of work experience was found to be associated with practice of nurses with regard to documentation of patient care. The fifth objective of the study was to correlate the knowledge and practices of nurses with regard to documentation of patient care. The finding of the study were that there is a positive relationship which is significant with knowledge and practices at 14.9 correlation and hence the probability value is 0.139 which is greater than 0.05 level of significance, hence there is a correlation but it is not significant.