Socio Demographic Characteristics

FINDINGS

Respondents Socio demographic characteristics

A total of 240 questionnaires were distributed to nurses and junior doctors in 10 Medical wards in three month period. The returns rate is 79.5% (n=191). Respondents’ mean age is 30.27 (SD±5.019). Nurses and junior doctors were between 22 years old to 50 years old.

Table 1: Respondents’ Socio demographic distribution Majority of the respondents are nurses (75.9%; n=145), Diploma holders (73.8%; n=141) while the rest are (26.2%; n=50) Degree holders. In term of working experience, 78.0% (n=149) had 1 year – 5 years, 11 years – 20 years (20.9%; n=40), and 21 years – 30 years (1%, n=2). The mean working experiences is 6.71 (±SD 5.231). The majority of respondents are without Post Basic

This is consistent with previous study that found lack of knowledge to be related to patient deterioration has not been recognized or acted appropriately (Thompson, Luettel, Healey, Scobie, & Beaumunt, 2007). It is crucial to initiate and implement lifelong learning in ensuring nurses in the right pathway and guidance with new knowledge, practice and trends. Lifelong learning allows nurses to develop confidence and skill in service provision that is evident to patients, their families, and other healthcare practitioners (Wetters, 2011).

Nurses play an important role in influencing patient safety every day. Nurses are responsible to stay with patient 24 hours and are expected to monitor patients’ condition. However, study has showed that nurses were not competence and fully aware about when to seek for help, do not seek advice and fail to appreciate clinical urgency. Findings also supported study done by Smith, Perkins, Bullock, & Bion (2007) that revealed junior doctors were lack of knowledge, confidence, and competence skills in all aspects of acute care, including basic task of recognition and management of acutely ill

The reliability and validity of the new scales and context suitability of the questions in the newly adapted survey tool may be questioned as it has never been used in any other study before; the results could be biased as the meaning of question could be understood differently (communication barriers between researcher and participants). However, by doing the pre- testing, the possibility of bias can be reduced. Furthermore, the number of nurses is more than junior doctors, (n=191). This may affect the validity of the study and this is something to consider for future