American Journal of Advances in Nursing Research

ATTITUDE OF STAFF NURSES TOWARDS THE USE OF COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES IN MANAGING PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS – A DESCRIPTIVE SURVEY

Jaishri

jaishree.bagg@gmail.com

Attitudes, Psychological problems, complementary therapies, staff nurses.

Complementary therapies (CTs) are nonconventional supportive therapies, which are used by the patients with psychological problems. Nurses play an important role in supporting patients with psychological problems who often seek information regarding CTs. Within their scope of practice, it is expected that nurses have sufficient knowledge about the safety and effective use of CTs, and positive attitudes toward supporting patients who wish to use CTs.The majority of studies investigating nurses’ knowledge and attitudes toward the use of CTs for psychological problems were conducted in developed countries. Overall, it was identified that nurses need to improve their knowledge and skills about CTs so that they were more confident to assist patients in integrating conventional treatment and CTs for psychological problems management. A descriptive study was conducted in Bangalore, South India, among staff nurses, total sample size was 50 (n=50). Non-probability Convenient sampling technique was used to select all staff nurses working in selected hospital, Bangalore, Karnataka. Attitude towards complementary therapy scale was constructed by the investigators and was validated by the experts. It reveals that majority of the subjects i.e. 96% have positive attitude, only 4% have neutral attitude where as none of them have negative attitude towards complementary therapy for management of psychological problems of chronically ill patients. The present study shows that majority of staff nurses i.e. 44 (88%) are aware of complementary therapies but none of them are practicing these therapies in their daily nursing care. and Majority of the subjects i.e. 96% have positive attitude, only 4% have neutral attitude towards complementary therapy for management of psychological problems of chronically ill patients.