Survey of awareness of acute oxygen therapy in nursing and midwifery students of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences - 2022

Background and Objective Awareness of acute oxygen therapy in medicine is of particular importance for diagnosis, prevention of complications, and increasing the effectiveness of treatment. Learning the principles of oxygen therapy, its indications, and complications is formed during student life. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the awareness of acute oxygen therapy in nursing and midwifery students of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences. Methods This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in October 2013 on 423 nursing and midwifery students at Ardabil University of Medical Sciences. The data collection tool was the Acute Oxygen Therapy Awareness Questionnaire by Desallo et al. (2019). The validity of the tool was obtained with the Cronbach's alpha technique (a=0.87). Data analysis was performed with SPSS version 21 software using one-sample t-test, ANOVA, and independent t-test, and the significance level of statistical tests was considered less than 0.05. Findings The results showed that 14.1% of students had participated in an oxygen therapy workshop and 54.4% of them had experience connecting oxygen to a patient. The mean score of acute oxygen therapy awareness was 50.71±7.09 and 82% of them had moderate awareness of acute oxygen therapy. The documentation score for oxygen delivery (5.94±1.16) and oxygen delivery skills (9.69±1.8) were lower than the criterion value and statistically significant (P<0.001). The knowledge score of acute oxygen therapy in nursing students (52.92±4.5), participants in oxygen therapy workshops (53.81±5.5), and experience of connecting oxygen to the patient (52.62±5.8) were higher than others, and the difference was significant (P<0.001). Conclusion Awareness of acute oxygen therapy among the students in the study was moderate. Therefore, holding educational workshops on the importance of oxygen therapy and applying theoretical knowledge of oxygen therapy in the clinic is recommended to improve student performance.